


It's a Long Walk Back to Eden

by SkadizzleRoss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gabriel Being Gabriel, Gen, Heaven, Season/Series 05, Zachariah Being a Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1907634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkadizzleRoss/pseuds/SkadizzleRoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from 5x18. A year after Dean gives Michael his consent, the Host catches up with Castiel at last. Dragged to Heaven, he now faces Zachariah's brand of divine punishment; and Sam, erstwhile abomination, is the only one left to save him. A 2010 spn_j2_bigbang entry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An argument leaves Castiel exposed. Sam reaps the consequences. An archangel gloats.

Rec'd listening: Explosions in the Sky - [Lonely Train](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7-sRlFEdqk).

[ ](http://i42.tinypic.com/2aaa7oo.jpg)

 

 

 

 

The axis mundi: where the paths of Heaven’s souls meet and cross— and at the end, the Garden—

Where’s the _Garden?_

Can’t see it, can’t see anything. Too long on Earth, in the world of dim and dark—it’s too bright, here, too much. No matter. The ones who brought him here, they will take him where he needs to be. And when he stumbles they will drag him—

♤ ♤ ♤

‘Looks like he’s sleeping.’

Isn’t that what people say about corpses?

Laid out in the funeral home under six inches of makeup, yeah, Sam can see that. But Cas doesn’t look like that, not here. He looks like he went down fighting, and losing. Like someone forced his arms back until they tore ligament from bone and then—well—fuck.

After he finds him like that, the angelic martyr on his shrine of concrete, Sam doesn’t touch him for awhile.

He walks around him, studies the broken glass and molding cardboard, the dead woman ten feet away with her limbs still bent the way she fell. He tries to make sense of how the blood, black now, spilled.

You leave a guy for five minutes—

That thought has him coughing up one hollow laugh. In an abrupt, jerky motion he drops to one knee. Cas’s head has slipped to the side, one half-lidded eye visible. He reaches over with one hand to pull his head around, but his fingers slip on the tacky wet.

The silence is a little too reverent, a little too stifling. He breaks it with a murmured, “C’mon, Cas.” He digs his nails into the cold, waxy skin of the angel’s collarbone and asks, “Bad bender, right?” His other hand finally manages to hook his jaw, turn his face just enough to settle Cas’s eyes, dull blue, on his.

He answers for himself: “Real bad.”

“I’d say so.” Ten paces to his right, a slow drawl that he knows well.

Sam’s at full height with the Trickster’s heart sighted down his pistol’s barrel in three seconds, maybe four. Perfectly accurate range: he’s standing with his arms folded and shoulders against the cinderblock. Wide-open.

To his left, Cas’s head slides back aside to rest at its original, awkward cant.

Grief –he’ll call it grief — burns down to anger quicker than the gun can fire. His finger slips on the metal but it catches at the crook, pulling the trigger to.

With a dull snap, the gun misfires.

“Son of a bitch.”

Pop, pop; misfire, misfire. He holds his position, a sharp profile against Gabriel’s arrogant slouch, and shouts it: “ _You son of a bitch._ ”

The archangel’s expression finally unfolds into the asshole smirk Sam knows best. “Fourth time’s a charm?” The fourth doesn’t come. Sam knows a vulture when he sees one, and he’s already unraveling into a slack-shouldered disgust. “Relax, champ,” Gabriel says from behind him. Sam turns about. The gun’s gone from his hands, fingers curled uselessly around empty air, but he’s not particularly surprised. It’s in Gabriel’s; he’s pressing it against the side of Castiel’s forehead, gray with dust, black with blood. “Wasn’t I that pulled this particular trigger.” Another grin. Coyote’s kind of grin. He mimes a shot with a, “Bang!” before tossing the gun back to him.

Sam fits his hand around the bloody handle and drops it to his side. “What the fuck are you doing here, _Gabriel?_ ”

The archangel stands and drops a hand on his shoulder, a parody of camaraderie before he tightens it, viselike. Sam can feel bone grind on cartilage as Gabriel says, “Don’t wear it out.” He drops his hold with an easy shrug, gestures towards the lights sparking overhead, the shattered windows. “They made a ruckus. Half the Eastern Seaboard would’ve heard, if anyone cared enough to listen. Not that they do, what with the West Coast being all caught up in… y’know.” He looks Sam over thoughtfully. “And here you are—”

“Who was it,” he interrupts. He gestures towards the woman: dressed in the typical executive flair. Gabriel follows the wave of his hand, but only blinks disinterestedly and looks back at him. “Michael? Raphael?”

“Y’know the _fam,_ ” Gabriel drawls, voice thick with exaggerated distaste. “They all look the same to me.”

Useless.

Sam stands still for awhile, staring down at Castiel’s right knee. He memorizes the rip in the denim there: one neat line.

Then he stalks around the still-living angelic prick and gently rolls Cas up, just enough to get his arms underneath knees and shoulders. Picking him up is the easy part. He’s as light as he always was.

 _Featherweight,_ his brother had said once, and laughed.

With an agitated twitch of his shoulders, Sam shifts the weight into balance, digs heel into concrete and starts for the door.

Gabriel stays where he is, watching with those narrow eyes. “Hey, before you go all Viking funeral on his ass, bit of advice: he didn’t burn out.”

He’s not much in the mood for listening, today. He’s more in the mood for walking.

“No big flash. No pretty barbecued wings,” the false god continues. He drags his voice up a little higher, keeps it dogging him across the empty expanse of the factory floor. “Give him a little credit, Sammy. He wasn’t much of a Warrior of Dear Old Dad anymore, but he was still something.”

Sam stalls about twenty feet from the door. He’s looking at the woman, not Gabriel. How she’s curled on her side, legs bent. How if he turns his head just so, there’s a pattern of soot-wings painted over the concrete around her.

He digs his fingers into the cold of Cas’s arm and turns back towards the door.

Glass crackles under Gabriel’s feet as he lands a foot to his right. “Oh, come _on_ , Sam. You sell your brain back when your brother sold his meatsuit?”

He catches a sharp breath between clenched teeth for two, three seconds. He breathes it out in a quiet: “Fuck off,” and then he’s done. Over it. Moving on.

The bastard laughs. Chuckles, actually, every bit the patronizing asshole. “Y’know what? Go deal with that—“ He gestures towards the corpse. “We’ll talk when you’re in a better mood.” He shifts again, settles under the exit sign, and makes a mock-scoff when Sam shoves past him and kicks the handle open. Calls after him: “Really don’t recommend the barbecue thing, though. Believe you me, it’s a pain in the ass pulling a torched body back together.”

Sam lets the door slam shut in his face.

 

 

 

 

 

He props Cas against the back wheel. He looks paler out here, under the sun. Smaller.

His own jacket, he pulls off, folds up and lies across the roof. Then he digs around the trunk until he comes up with enough junk towels to cover the Impala’s backseat. He arranges Cas on them just so, arms crossed, head turned aside, legs bent enough to get the door shut. Then he wipes his hands clean, picks up his jacket, and climbs behind the wheel.

After five minutes, he puts the key in the ignition. Five minutes after that, he still hasn’t started the engine.

He presses his forehead against the steering wheel and says, “Your angel’s dead.”

The only answer is him, his breathing, and nothing.

“Sorry,” he adds.

He starts the car.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Trickster makes an unexpected offer.

Rec'd listening: Radiohead - [Electioneering](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl-pXpXxK00).

[ ](http://i42.tinypic.com/elwjm.jpg)

Sam doesn’t burn the body.

Could be he’s listening to Gabriel. Could be he just doesn’t have the energy to build a pyre, today. He’s always looked at pyres as more of a two-man job.

♤ ♤ ♤

The diner isn’t much, rotting rafters and a healthy dose of mildew, but the back-up generator out back and the piddling little meat locker on the inside are enough for his needs. The generator spews smoke and gunk as it purges six months of disuse, but it looks like it’ll survive on the second-hand gas he’s siphoned from the Impala’s tank. It’s enough.

Every breaker in the circuit box goes off but the main and the meat locker. That’s where he puts Cas, neatly arranged between the empty metal racks, and with only a passing thought on the serious morbidity of the whole thing he’s turning to leave.

It’s the door that snags him. He’s got his fingers on the handle when he thinks, abruptly, _I could’ve caught him._ He lingers in the stifling, clammy humidity of the room. _Yeah. Could’ve._ Could’ve followed Cas right out the door he’d chased him through. Could’ve tackled him before he even got there – thrown him down and held him until he heard the stupid goddamn words coming out of his mouth, misanthropic son of a _bitch--_

Castiel. Cas. His stupid brother’s stupid little stoic angel. Cas, the off-and-on alcoholic, trying on human addictions and affectations and emotions like clothes and shrugging them off just as easily. Cas who he couldn’t trust to drive anywhere, ‘cause he’d just-- _stop_ , Sam stirring awake in the passenger seat to the Impala idling on gravel and Cas standing out on some rise, staring blankly at the sky or an empty field. Looking small. Small, small, small. Little grounded human Cas.

And now Cas just—sits there, _small_ , and Sam stands, just as still and motionless under the cold rush of air from the shuddering vent, stands until the claustrophobia’s worked under his skin and through, until he’s fumbling for the handle, shoving out the door, stumbling through the kitchen and escaping into muggy miserable empty fucking night.

“ _Gabriel!_ Come on, you son of a bitch!” He slams his fist against the side of the restaurant, drawing a rattle out of the loose porch light overhead. “ _GABRIEL!_ ”

He shouts it until he’s hoarse. The bastard doesn’t show.

♤ ♤ ♤

Sam wakes to dark and Gabriel saying, “You’ve got this moping thing _down_.” He’s framed by the interior light of the kitchen’s conventional refrigerator, which had, when Sam had fallen asleep in the corner, been unplugged. There are two bottles in his hand when he turns back. It’s too dark to read the label, but it’s pretty clearly beer.

What the hell. Sam takes it by the neck and pries off the cap with sleep-numbed fingers. The cold’s just enough to loosen up his tongue for a curt, “Leave me alone.” 

“Hey, you called me, remember?”

“You didn’t come,” Sam accuses.

“I’m not Lassie,” Gabriel sneers back. “’sides, I was getting some things together.”

“And I was thinking, you don’t give a shit what happened to Cas. You’re just—whatever you are. Bored. Gloating. I don’t care. Do it somewhere else.”

“Sure. What with the Michael-Lucifer throwdown, world’s boring these days.” He gives a staged sigh, kicks his volume up. “Humans these days. They’re so close-minded about this whole ‘death’ thing.”

“ _I get it._ ” That’s as far as he’ll let the bait take him. “Why are you here?”

“I owe you half a favor,” Gabriel finally admits. And of course he spins it to sound condescending: “Your brother’s done his part, getting this familial bullshit over with. I reward good behavior. Indirectly, in this case.”

Sam bumps his shoulder against the nearest wall. “He’s fighting your war for you.”

“Oh, I don’t think _he’s_ fighting it,” he leers.

Sam spins his anger out in silence - twists the bottle once, twice in its ring of condensation on the floor. Gabriel keeps talking, of course, can’t fucking shut up: “And you were something yourself, back in the day. I heard you and the Boy Scout in there had a sizeable role in keeping those Croatoan nasties from running amok in the world. With a little help from the big boys, of course.”

“We stopped some outliers,” Sam answers flatly. “Michael razed a fucking city.”

“They’re big believers in collateral damage,” Gabriel says around his best shit-eating grin. He looks Sam over more carefully. “Can’t say I’m impressed with how you’ve turned out. Poor time for retirement, don’t you think?”

At that, Sam goes still. He looks up, watching the archangel with flat resentment.

Gabriel drops to his mirthless smirk. “You made a mistake. Or, you think you did, and that’s all that matters with you guilty types. I’m willing to give you the opportunity to fix it, because I am _just_ that good. My only question for you is, would you take it?”

“Take what?”

“The chance to revive your meat popsicle, in there. Answer right. Once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Sam takes a slow glance at the freezer door. There’s a little too much locked up in there – in him – for a _right_ answer. It’s just—fuck. He doesn’t _know._ Except he does, or some part of him does, because his mouth speaks for him: “Yeah—“ He pauses, but doesn’t contradict, just affirms, “Yes. But why the hell do you--”

Gabriel cuts him off. “See, this is why no one can have a rational conversation with you mortals. It’s always _why, why, why._ Just _accept_ , okay? Now.” He cups a hand around his ear and leans forward in an exaggeration of intent listening. 

Sam glares at him before finally announcing, “So Cas isn’t dead.”

Gabriel rolls back, bumping his back against the metal of the fridge. “Oh, he’s dead. Dead as a doorpost. Far as you’re concerned, anyway.”

“Then he’s in Heaven.”

Gabriel laces his fingers around the neck of his bottle. “And just _guess_ who put him there.”

“Michael? Hell if I know. Like you said, the whole Host wants him—“ Sam stops, squints. “Oh.”

“By god, I think he’s got it. Yessir – it was Zach’s boys that done dragged him up there.”

“Petty,” Sam mutters, and draws out the next mouthful of beer. He hits dregs. Gabriel obliges him with another. He flicks the cap at the far wall and says, “So, what - he’s back in angelic Alcatraz?”

“Oh, I doubt it. Zach’s benched and bored, these days – Michael’s orders, or so I heard. He’ll have his own little Disneyland planned out.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

Gabriel shrugs in the dark, answering with an aloof, “Where’s that moronic ‘Go-to’ attitude I know and love?”

“Humans don’t just go waltzing into Heaven, alright? There’s this little thing about _dying_ \--”

“Ways around it,” he interjects.

“—and even if I do get there, I’m not an angel. I’ve got no clue where to start looking. I don’t even know _how_ to look—“

“Oh, you don’t have to twist my arm, I’ll go with you.” He throws out his arms, sloshing beer across the floor when he does. “I’ll be your Sancho Panza, your Sacaga-fuckin’-wea.”

Sam watches him narrowly. “Thought you were in self-imposed exile.”

“Don’t know if you noticed, kiddo, but Heaven’s empty. They’re all down here, fighting Daddy’s war.” He considers. “Well, mostly empty. Few guards we’ll have to slip past. No big deal.”

“You know that saying about something being ‘too good to be true’?”

“Heard another one about not lookin’ a gift horse in the mouth,” he answers around a swallow of beer.

Sam finally bothers to sit forward and look him in the eye. “I think you’re going to waste my time, same as you always do. Throw me into some stupid playworld—“

Gabriel’s voice has dropped to something darker when he leans forward to match. “World’s hit the expiration date, Sammy. I don’t have time for that anymore.”

“Yeah, expiring as we speak.” He slumps back. “So we’re back at why you care if Castiel’s alive or not.”

“I’ve got other business up there, if you must insist. But don’t worry. I’ll get you to _‘Cas’._ ”

“And what then? How exactly am _I_ supposed to deal with Zachariah of the Six Wings and the Four Faces—“

Gabriel scoffs. “He tell you that? Lying bastard. He’s got four wings on a good day.”

Sam scowls at him, adding, “And how am I supposed to get back?”

“Return trip, I can guarantee. As for the rest - well, I say worry about that when you get to it. Oh, by the way, Columbo left this—“ he drops a surprisingly heavy sword in Sam’s lap “—back at the slaughterhouse.”

Sam picks it up and turns it over, studying the simple, perfectly-crafted lines of Castiel’s sword. Then he turns the hilt back to Gabriel and asks, “Can you keep it with you, for now?”

And there’s that grin again; this one spells out ‘atta-boy.’ “Why not?”

With a spring, the archangel’s on his feet and the sword’s gone from Sam’s hands. It disappears into the inside of Gabriel’s jacket; Gabriel himself disappears through the double doors that lead into the dining room.

Sam takes the rest of his beer in three slow swigs and stands to follow.

Gabriel’s bellowing through the doors, “A few ground rules first. Just in case we get separated.” The snap of fingers and blinding light greets him; that and the molded green of the linoleum, garish under fluorescent bulbs. “Here,” Gabriel announces cheerfully, and lobs a bright red bottle at his chest. “Art time.” 

Sam catches it on reflex. It’s ketchup, good old traditional Heinz.

Gabriel kicks a chair out of the way to clear up a patch of floor before he bends over with his own condiment – in his case, mustard – in hand. He sketches a sigil across the floor: Enochian-based sigils worked into a framework of concentric circles, a few Sam recognizes, others that not even Sam ever figured out the meaning for. His motions are quick and efficient, like a guy scrawling his signature.

When he’s finished, he gestures to each symbol in turn. “Air, fire, sight, strength. Sight’s what you need.”

Sam motions towards one particularly suspicious sigil. “I thought that meant ‘goose’.”

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t make your lot smart. Here.” He makes a gesture at Sam’s arm; it’s mostly on reflex that he puts it forward a little and says, “What?” Just as quickly, he’s hissing, “Ow,” as Gabriel slices his wrist open with a knife that he wasn’t holding three seconds ago, leaving a bloom of blood in its wake. The archangel swipes a fingerful of it before going back to his art. “You couldn’t just _summon_ some?” Sam asks, wrapping the offended limb up in his shirt. 

“Gotta figure out what kind of game Zach’s playing,” Gabriel says, dutifully ignoring him while he superimposes two more symbols over the original sketch. “I got my hunches, but omniscient I’m not.” He pauses mid-sketch. “You want the Vulcan mindmeld, or should I?” Appraising Sam’s dubious scowl, he grins. “Aw, you look like you wanna. Here ya go.” He draws one more symbol, this one connecting the two via its jagged outer ring.

“Castiel,” he says, pointing to the top. “Mind,” he says, pointing to the bottom. For the middle, he says, “Mud-monkey. Get your right hand nice and bloody; heel over mud-monkey, fingers over Cas. Probably wanna close your eyes.”

Sam stares at the mess of mustard and blood, eyes narrowed. “What is this supposed to do, exactly?”

“You’ll see. C’mon, don’t got all night.”

He gives Gabriel one long, gauging look while he uses his left hand to drag some of the still-leaking blood up over his palm and fingers. Gabriel stares obligingly back, ambivalent as ever.

With a staying breath, Sam presses his palm to the sigil.

Nothing happens.

He glances at Gabriel, hesitant. “I think you—“ He doesn’t finish. In a span of milliseconds, that bland face gets washed out in blinding white; Sam throws a hand up over his eyes, making a startled, pained noise. He’s distantly aware of Gabriel smugly announcing, “Told you to close your eyes.”

There’s something under his knees, but it’s not tiled floor (grass? No; something--) shifting. Jarring. The light doesn’t dim, only grows brighter, painfully so, and something speaks. A dozen voices thrown together - he knows outside of this it’d be noise to his ears, Angel-speak, but here it’s words: _In the beginning, there was Light._

The voice laughs in the too-bright emptiness.

_Oh. You weren’t around for that part, were you?_

_Stop--_ A closer, smaller voice. He recognizes it even when he doesn’t. He says _Cas,_ but there’s no sound. He’s an observer, locked in neutral.

Fingers card through his hair and dig in, deep enough to draw blood. _Let’s start somewhere relevant,_ the voice says, too close, and the fingers _tear_ through and—

Warm, strong fingers grab his wrist and jerk it aside. He blinks away the bright, staring down at the smeared sigils on the floor. They’re no longer readable.

Gabriel lets go of his hand. “So, what’s the tricky bastard up to?”

“Don’t know,” he mutters, dragging his hand up with suddenly shaking muscles. “Something was talking. I guess it was Zachariah. He grabbed my head – uh, Cas’s? Felt like he was digging through my skull.”

Three taps of his finger against the tile. “Alright.” He picks up the mustard bottle and swipes a hand through the air above the ruined sigil; the floor’s scrubbed clean again. 

“No, not alright,” Sam says, rubbing his still-bloody hand across his jeans. “What’s he doing?”

“Mock-trial.” He waves a hand. “Court-martial, tribunal, whatever you want to call it - when you pull an offense in the almighty eyes of Heaven’s precocious bastards, you have a right to fair trial before your peers. Except your only character witnesses are your own memories, yanked out for all to see in high definition. It’s a bit of a mind-fuck. Zachariah knows the procedure front and back, I’m sure.”

Sam presses his hand to the back of his skull, an unconscious sympathetic gesture. “So he’s gonna drag him through his own memories.”

“Probably. All the real nasty ones. The nice thing is, he’ll leave a trail. He’s got to create some dioramas out of your boy’s head. You’ll be able to follow them, leapfrog-style.”

“Like the axis mundi.”

Gabriel looks him over, reassessing him, then shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much, minus all the fluffy little fond memories. There are a couple of ways to follow it. ‘Course, I’m fastest. I’ll try to keep a hold on you, but things happen, slow mud-monkeys fall behind—best you know the back-up ways. Alright, here’s the base—“ Gabriel draws two circles, and a pentagram to encircle them. He points towards Sam. “Draw me the sigil for Castiel. That one’s important; specific to him alone. Zach’s, too.”

He obliges with the ketchup, and mostly succeeds; there’s one line in the Zachariah sigil that Gabriel smudges and corrects before making him draw it three more times.

“What’s yours?” Sam asks while he works.

“Classified,” Gabriel answers. “Alright, that’s good enough for government work. You wanna follow Cas, put his name here--” he points to the top of the construct, then drops his fingers to the bottom “—and mud-monkey here. You remember that one? Yeah, right, draw it anyway.”

He bites his tongue and draws. On a safer topic, “And how are we getting there, again?”

“Let me worry about that. Ok, draw the whole thing. Zachariah, this time. Not that you’ll want to. He’ll probably charcoal your ass if you pop up at his– oh, c’mon, faster! _Christ,_ you’re slow.”

He keeps up the commentary about Sam’s arthritic palsy through two more repetitions, then he drops back with what could pass for a look of satisfaction under about sixteen layers of consternation. “Alrighty then. Here.” 

Sam catches the flask that the angel chucks at him reflexively. It’s silver, tarnished at that, but there’s a lot of painstaking detail worked into the filigree wrapped over its surface. On the edges, there’s Enochian worked into the leaves and vines. “What’s this?”

“Honey, rosemary, manna of the gods-- Don’t worry about it. Thing you need to know is, it’s your key to the kingdom. That’s what you’re going to be drawing your sigils with.” When he sees Sam unscrewing the cap, he warns, “Once it’s gone, it’s gone. So don’t waste it.”

He only takes a testing sniff – it’s sickly sweet – before replacing the cap. “How do I finish the sigil?”

“Ring finger here, index finger here.” He points to two points of the center star. “Thumb here.” The bottom. “Lucky you, no blood.” He squints at Sam, looking doubtful. “You got all this? ‘Cause I’m not coming back for your ass when you—“

“I got it.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of Dodge. Sit back, eyes closed. No—“ Sam’s moving to pocket the flask. “Keep it in your hand.”

Sam falls back on his heels, the silver flask heavy in his hand. He stares at Gabriel’s smug face long and hard, and then he takes one shifting glance towards the meat locker door. It’s nothing but a bit of chrome shine beyond the sagging double doors. 

He breathes slow and closes his eyes.

Nothing happens - not immediately. Instead his pain-in-the-ass guide’s saying, “You ready? ‘Cause once this baby hits 88 miles an hour—“

“Oh, for the love of—“

Gabriel scowls and pokes two fingers to his forehead. “Shut up and hold still.” He says three words in Enochian. Then he says, “ _Bang._ ”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam follows Castiel's trail of bad memories.

Rec'd listening: Unkle - [Glow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-csWqgRJFU).

[ ](http://i39.tinypic.com/ychht.jpg)

 

 

 

 

Sam wakes to the rustling of wind through leaves. The sound’s comforting; fluid. He can see why he fell asleep--

Then he hears, _Bang._

His eyes snap open to a trippy night sky, the moon spinning amongst too many stars. It should make him dizzy but in reality, it’s… calming.

Pressing his palms against grass and weeds, he pushes himself up and takes stock. First stop, nowhere: it’s just a field, bordered on all sides by a black forest. The too-large moon is light enough to see by, but there’s no sign of Gabriel, angel of a thousand smirks. There’s no sign of anyone.

He was expecting someone, of course. He doesn’t realize it until he looks over that empty field, but he was.

The flask is still in his hand; he shakes it and feels, rather than hears, the slosh of whatever syrupy concoction Gabriel had come up with flowing around the inside. “Hey—“ He doesn’t know what to call him, here. He settles with lowering his voice. “Gabriel?”

A hand collides with the back of his head. “ _Ow--_ ”

“You want to keep it down, dumbass?” Gabriel’s an abrupt shadow at his shoulder, eyes scanning the landscape.

The angel looks mostly the same; a permanent sneer beneath narrow eyes. But if Sam stares at him close enough, there’s a little something more – under his skin, at the edges of his face – than there was before. Something the slightest bit incongruent with whatever Sam thinks he’s seeing.

Catching his stare, Gabriel looks him over with one eyebrow raised and says, “Nice Heaven. Very swanky.”

Sam scowls. “Can we get going?”

“Oh, sure, why not?”

Gabriel reaches for his shoulder, but Sam knocks his hand back. “I need the sword,” he says, palm held out.

The archangel stares at it, vaguely surprised. “What? Oh, no. No can do, kiddo.”

He curls his fingers into a fist. “’No can do’?”

“No killing in Heaven. Daddy’s rules,” he says, giving the sky a disgusted glance.

“What—you didn’t think that was _important to mention?_ Anything _else_ I need to know?”

“Oh, I’ve got a few pointers. We’ll worry about that at the next stop.”

He reaches forward again. Sam just knocks his hand back down. “What am I supposed to do about Zachariah if I can’t kill him?”

“ _Improvise._ ” This time, Gabriel takes a preemptive swat at his hand before he shoves his palm against Sam’s forehead.

He blinks once, reflexively. The stars take the milliseconds-long opportunity to fade into a sheet-metal ceiling, patches of rust allowing light through in narrow streams. Beside him Gabriel announces, pleased: “Here we go.”

Sam follows Gabriel’s gaze down. There’s a woman on the floor, trapped in mid-writhe. Light pours in bright streaks from her mouth, nose, eyes, throwing the broad expanse of the empty warehouse floor into stark highlights and starker shadows. There’s a bloody hole just above her heart, spilling just as much light as the rest of her. She doesn’t move; it’s a permanent rigor mortis.

Did Cas look like that?

A quarter-turn, and he might get to see.

He doesn’t turn. Not immediately. Sam stares at her instead, hyperaware of his hands heavy and worthless by his sides. When he clears his throat, he says, “This is where he died.”

Gabriel nods. “Guess they’re gonna Tarantino the whole thing, huh?”

Sam nods along with him and turns.

There are two more angels: a man, early forties, and an older, stern-looking woman on the outside. They’re bent over the floor, arms in just the right position to be pinning Castiel to the floor. Castiel isn’t there; there’s just empty air where their hands are curled, and a gush of blood where he’d been torn through.

Sam rounds on Gabriel. “Not exactly here, is he?”

“Hey, I don’t write the rules. You just gotta follow the breadcrumbs,” Gabriel answers smugly. He’s hovering over the dying angel, squinting at the grace bleeding out of her. “I think I met her at a party once. Shame.”

“So get on to the next breadcrumb—“ He drops into obstinate silence when Gabriel holds up one finger.

The shadows clinging to the edges of the room move first, tracking unnaturally fast across the concrete. At the window set high into the far wall, the sun is beginning to move, too fast to be sunset. The shadows are the only things moving – crawling - in the whole place. Sam takes an uncomfortable step back, one hand reaching for the gun that isn’t there anymore.

“These worlds don’t last, not once your angel buddies have moved on,” Gabriel casually explains. “It’ll default to your slice of Heaven. Watch.”

With a red flare, the sun disappears from the dirty windowpanes. There’s a moon in its place, ratty curtains framing it.

Sam tries to shake off the cognitive dissonance of it, but by that point the warehouse is gone entirely.

The new room is claustrophobically small compared to the last. By the looks of it, it’s a dining room, kitchen, and living room all in one, though it was made to accommodate far less. There’s only room for three crooked chairs at the scratched-up table; on the fourth side, the couch’s back digs into the wood. Opposite to that, there’s a raw patch of ply where the chair closest to the kitchen cabinet slams into it each time it’s pulled back. The measly two feet of counter is covered by one dirty bowl, an empty container of chocolate icing, and a small baking pan.

There’s a cake on the table, laid out on aluminum foil. It’s poorly made and poorly decorated. The bakers clearly ran out of icing before they got to the sides, and one corner of it somehow got broken off at one point; there’s an unlit candle stuck in sideways to keep it attached, some icing hastily shoved in as mortar. The remaining three candles, the red-and-blue striped ones that Sam remembers perfectly, are stuck into the most structurally sound sections of the rest of the cake, small wavering flames flickering at their tops. Some shaky 5-year-old hand has scripted _Happy Birthday Dad_ on the icing in blue piping. It’s clumsy, and the _r_ is backwards, but there’s a perfectionist kind of neatness to the lines of the letters.

One of the chairs is pulled back, but empty. That’s what holds Sam’s attention the longest. Well aware, Gabriel raps his knuckles against the chair’s back. “And who was sitting here?”

The back door slams shut, locks rattling into place. A familiar voice – younger, and maybe a little bit softer than Sam remembers – shouts, “Boys?” up the hall.

Sam grabs Gabriel by the arm, voice dropped to a low hiss. “Can we just fucking go?”

“Alright, alright, pushy.”

The cake melts away, its candles with it. John Winchester’s shadow stretches up into nothing on the far wall.

♤ ♤ ♤

When the world settles, Gabriel snorts. “That’s a nice look for you.”

Sam’s staring at himself: frozen in time. It takes him a second to work through the uncanny notion of seeing himself as a too-real wax figure, but when he does, he can see that Gabriel’s got a point. He never realized his nose scrunched like that when he was angry.

And does he look angry: the back straight, fists-at-his-sides kind of angry, that look of tight-jawed silent rage he gets when he’s set on dogging someone right out of the room with his eyes alone.

By the cell phone at his feet, he’s already succeeded. Cas has already gone. But he – that is, the frozen him, past-him – is still staring down the door with flat-eyed hate.

It’s like a bad caricature, that much rage and disgust on his face. He makes a reflexive swipe at his own, making sure it’s not still there, somehow.

Gabriel has moved on to staring at the wall like it’s of more interest than taupe-colored wallpaper. He’s got the same kind of disturbing stillness that Cas would get sometimes, not a muscle moving, not even the simple rise and fall of breathing. Sam keeps a skeptical eye on him as he bends to retrieve the cell phone from the floor. Part of him expects it to be stuck there, but it’s not. It comes up easily, and rattles the exact way he expects it to when he turns it in his hand.

“We’re catching up,” Gabriel abruptly announces. Sam’s still staring at the cell phone when the archangel drops his hand, heavy, on his shoulder.

♤ ♤ ♤

The damp hits first: his boots splash in what smells like gutter water. He’s staring at an empty hand lit orange by the sodium-arc lamps overhead.

He looks down the back alley he’s now standing in. The lines of it are perfectly familiar. There’s a flash of chrome-and-black at the far end: the Impala, waiting. And by the time he got there, Sam remembers dully, he was spitting blood.

Hit to the ribs, back to the wall, and hit to the face. He took all three.

Christ, he’d been pissed. Favored his left side for two weeks. Cas, that miserable bastard, he hadn’t given him a single fucking warning. At first, he was the complacent rag doll. Let him drag him out the joint, halfway to the car, and then—one, two, three. _Bastard._

The him that’s a piece of this particular set, the too-real marionette, still has its back to the wall, head turned aside. There’s red blooming on one cheek and his arms are up, ready to hit right back.

He never got around to it.

Gabriel’s walking past him. He mimes fitting his fingers into the empty curl of fabric that’d fit around Cas’s fist, saying, “Wow, you _gotta_ explain this one. You got beat up by the runt?”

There’s a line of blood working its way down the chin of his remembered self. Just staring at it, Sam can taste it. He rubs his hand over his mouth in disgust before he answers. “He was on a bender.”

It’s a bad answer. He knew it then, and knows it now.

“Right, the alcoholic angel.” Gabriel glances at him, grinning. “Kinda makes me proud.”

“He was being a prick,” Sam mutters flatly.

No.

He was being a human.

Trying it all on, one after another: anger, sadness, despair. If it doesn’t work, shake it off, move on to the next experience. Drinking, that didn’t work, not in the long run. Music. Hunting. He sampled it all – hand constantly on the dial, moving from one radio station to the next, and the next, and the next, an incessant restless jumble of sound byte after sound byte until Sam told him ‘ _Jesus, Cas, quit it_ ’, - and none of it worked. None of it explained enough, distracted enough.

Sam knew it wasn’t Cas’s fault; that he didn’t know how. And maybe he didn’t _enjoy_ watching him search like this, the great angel scrounging for some kind of sanity, but maybe—maybe he was satisfied by it, a little. Bitterly satisfied, for a while.

He’d humored him. Humored his failed attempts at cursing and his schizophrenic radio listening and his occasional binge. Humored him right up until he threw a wild punch in this Nowhere, USA alley.

Wasn’t that just as human? Lashing out at the last friend you’ve got. Testing how much shit they’ll put up with for your sorry ass. Hell, hadn’t he—how many arguments had he and Dean—he _knew_ , he _knows_ that that’s all it was. Testing. Trying it on.

But that one night, that one alley. Maybe it was too close to home, maybe it was just too damn much. Either way it ended there. Sam had told him to fuck off, or something, hell, he doesn’t even remember. Remembers the bitter taste in his mouth, the angry satisfaction of leaving Cas standing there, looking dazed. Disappointed. Lost.

Because that’s what humans do.

Gabriel’s dropping his hand, eyes trailing up towards the building’s gutter. “You’ve come a long way for a prick.” He’s stilling again, drawing up into something unmoving, inhuman.

It’s the moonlight that distracts him. It draws out a shadow that, if Sam looks just right, might be the curve of immense wings at Gabriel’s back.

He drags disbelieving eyes towards Gabriel’s face. That ever-present sarcastic twist of his lips, but there’s more beneath it. He can sense it, here, the vast _something_ that Gabriel is, and he can see how ill-fitting this human shape is. A mask – that’s all this is. Perfectly crafted for Sam’s imperfect human mind.

Jesus.

How long has he been kidding himself?

Cas isn’t human. Never was; never will be. No more than Gabriel is.

Before Sam can think to startle away, Gabriel’s reaching for him. It’s not a shoulder-grab this time; this time he plants his hand on the middle of Sam’s chest and gives him a firm shove back. His boot catches on a crack in the pavement. Stumbling back, he lands on his ass in gravel.

The air’s thick with the peculiar tang of burning human flesh.

He knows Gabriel’s gone long before he rocks to his feet and shouts his name. This place is emptier, far emptier; there’s a low hum gone from his bones that he hadn’t known was there.

He tugs his sleeves down against the cold and paces down the rust-and-metal aisles of Bobby Singer’s junkyard anyway. “ _Gabriel!_ ”

Gabriel doesn’t answer, because Gabriel’s not here; just him, again, of-fucking-course, shoved around like the human pawn he is.

To the north there’s a column of smoke curling black and still against the gray of the sky, and Sam finds the source right where he remembered it.

Past the frozen memory of himself and the indent in the gravel where Castiel had stood, the pyre’s almost burned out.

Betraying feet drag him in a slow circle around them and their morbid bonfire. Through the frozen flames, there are only bits and pieces of what had been Robert S. Singer. Charred bone. Black flesh. Ash.

Then he stares at himself – face hidden beneath mussed, unwashed hair – and tries to remember how Castiel had looked. Small and gray. Eyes on the fire, always.

Never said a word.

Sam’s mind locks around that thought: never a word. His hand fumbles the flask from his pocket as he stalks towards the shed, kicks a sheet of scrap to the ground. He pours out the sigils with a careful hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memories start to fray.

Rec'd listening: Led Zeppelin - [Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrVDViSlsSM).

[ ](http://i39.tinypic.com/xlwgw0.jpg)

 

 

 

 

Sam’s on his eighth memory when he runs into Dean, and it scares the shit out of him.

Oh, the places he’s been: Detroit, the St. Louis ruins, and a couple places he’s never seen. He’s fresh from the deserts – an angel in a flowing white dress sprawled out across the dunes – when Dean’s just _there._ Glowering. It startles him back a step.

His brother’s got his hand pressed against a bloody sigil, the panic room’s familiar iron walls at his back. He’s staring at Sam, but that’s only because Sam’s standing where Cas had been. Sam had always thought the look would’ve been at least a little apologetic. It’s not. Dean’s face is all resentment, flinted eyes and curled lip, the whole nine yards.

It’s not right.

His feet crunch on glass. Broken lamp. That was what Dean used to get the blood he needed, Sam knows; he’d poured over that room in the hours after the fact, cataloging every worthless little facet of his brother’s last act of stupidity.

Would’ve left him in the dark, if they’d gotten him back. Would’ve handcuffed him to the damn bed. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

But that face - it’s not right. Can’t be right. It’s like a bad caricature.

That, more than anything, unsettles him.

All the more reason to move: he shakes the flask. Three-quarters left, as far as he can tell. Go west, young man—

♤ ♤ ♤

The next place came after, not before.

Sam recognizes the bar. It’s a little dive in downtown Sioux Falls. There’s a bony old man in front of him, kneeling on the sidewalk. He has a Bible raised, but not in an O-Holy-Holy kind of way. His elbow’s locked; he’s trying to protect himself. The way his temple’s cut open and weeping red, he’s already been hit once. His eyes shine wet with fear, even as he’s trying to force his face into the look of a proper martyr.

Castiel explained it as coldly and vaguely as he explained anything: _I was not there in time. He used a street preacher to draw their attention._

Sam’s willing to bet Zachariah wasn’t the one that punched out the street preacher. He’s seen enough of Cas to know – Cas shooting down a Croat, Cas dragging a demon to its knees. Cas realizing that Dean Winchester just said ‘Yes’. And if he remembers right, there’d been blood on his knuckles, that night. The way his knuckles had shined. _He used a street preacher…_

“Jesus, Cas,” Sam mutters.

He finds a spot of pavement beyond the Jehovah’s Witness, pulls the flask out of his back pocket, but he never pulls the cap off. He stares at the man for awhile – one palm against the ground, a knee next to it, back curled in the picture of cowering fear. Thinks of Gabriel’s wings in the moonlight.

Then, with the most purpose he’s felt in a while, he settles back into a kneel, gravel popping against asphalt under his feet. The preacher keeps his Bible up against his invisible foe, and Sam waits for the moon to turn.

♤ ♤ ♤

When Heaven settles, he’s at the back entrance to a two-story, windowless building, a single metal door in front of him. The air’s hotter and thicker here, somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line. He recognizes the smell: paper mills. It was Missouri, he thinks, and he was 14, and in one, two, three—

The door opens.

He pours into the dark, reeking of popcorn, both stale and fresh. On the screen Danny DeVito’s narrating over flashes of nostalgic 1950s Hollywood: _…and very. Hush. Hush._

It’s 1997, and Dean’s getting him into an R-rated movie. In a couple of seconds Guy Pearce is going to waltz on the screen, and Kevin Spacey, and Russell Crowe – it’s _L.A. Confidential_ and they’ll be talking about it for weeks – Sam wants to be Exley, the straight-and-narrow smart cop, and Dean wants to be Vincinnes, the snarky street-wise one. Sam doesn’t get it, Vincinnes doesn’t even live to the end. Dean insists that that just makes him cooler, because that’s how Dean’s fucked-up mind works.

Here, now, he lunges forward to catch Dean’s arm on the door, says, “Hey, Dean—“ but his brother’s already disappearing into the dark. Sam chases after him, takes the steps up to the back row in threes (where they’d crouch, when the ushers turned their flashlight on the crowd, and they’d toss popcorn at the people below, make shadow puppets eat the actors’ heads) – and stares down the line of empty seats, unevenly lit in the constant shift of the screen’s light.

“Dean?”

He sprints back down, eyeing every row. The whole damn theater is empty, but he calls out again, quieter - “Dean?”

The movie rolls on.

He runs out to the lobby, but there’s nothing; unwaxed floors and empty counters. Even the ticket booth is empty. He shoves open the front door and stumbles not into paper mill stench and thick Missouri air but sunlight, bright and clean and pure, and Jess grinning in his face.

She’s young and gorgeous, a gold spill of bangs across her face from a sloppy ponytail. “Sam Winchester, right? Anthro 313?”

He remembers this.

The rhythm of the waves and the warmth of the sand, spring semester freshman year. Half Moon Bay. He remembers the sun and _Jess_ and choking over his first words. But he doesn’t stumble over his own tongue and force through a clumsy “Yeah, guilty,” this time. This time, he just stares at her.

The memory plays on without him: a small, light hand folds around his shoulder and pushes, a gentle shove, as she grins through her displeasure. “You’re the one that blew the curve on that last test. I would’ve had an A- if it weren’t for you! _Bastard._ ” She laughs, though really, she’s laughing the whole time – every syllable is happy, and normal, and pretty—

God _damn_ it.

He digs his toes into the sand and drags a hand across his face. “Sorry, Jess. I, uh—“ And then he grabs her and kisses her, right on the lips. Soft hair smooth skin and that coconut whatever she uses so she won’t freckle. She scrunches her nose just the way she used to, then stares at him in pleasant surprise. “Sorry,” he says again. Then he turns and runs.

There’s a pier just where he remembered it was; he has to sprint around the makings of a bonfire, the old classmates, dorm guys. His freshman roommate shoves a beer his way and whines, “Oh, c’mon, Saa-aam,” when he blows right past him.

Was she – is she, is _that_ \- real? Was that her? Does it matter? The honey pours as clean as ever, neat straight lines, and he wants to hold on to the memory of Jess, the way she tastes and smells, he wants to stay _here_ , and that’s precisely why he can’t.

So he presses his hand to the sigil, and goes.

 

The pier – salt-flecked and splintering – is hardwood floor, now. There’s a line of fire in front of him, long licks of yellow that are frozen in the air. He recognizes the curve of it: holy oil.

Lucifer’s staring at him across the flames.

“Jesus.” Sam startles back. He almost ends up stumbling into the other side of the circle. But it’s alright, because the world’s slipping sideways – Lucifer’s small, self-assured smile disappearing. He sketches a quick, messy sigil across the boards. He doesn’t need to see Jess again, or Dad, or the hole where Dean’s supposed to be—

He presses his hand to the honey-and-oil just as the floor starts sprouting blades of grass.

♤ ♤ ♤

_Loud_ and _bright_ : the next memory explodes across his senses with all the force of a flash grenade.

The air hums and vibrates, floorboards shaking, but the frequency’s off, slow: _thump thump thump_ rather than the constant rattle it wants to be. This has to be the wrong place; he has to be back in his own memory. What memory, he’s got no idea (Ilchester? No--) but god, it’s _loud--_

He throws a hand up to cover his eyes, but the light bleeds through the skin, blinds and burns. He can’t even make out the shape of it, whatever the fuck it is that’s in front of him—an angel, has to be--before there’s something digging its nails into his shoulder. He’s stuck. Frozen—and waiting.

Someone’s pleading: _Raphael, brother--_

The last thing Sam expects to hear next is, “Woops. Watch out for that one.”

Sam turns towards the hand and Gabriel’s voice, but it’s still too bright to see more than the vague impression of a face. Gabriel shouts over the hum: “Total asshole, that guy.”

Now that he squints, Sam can almost make out the cracked walls of Chuck Shirley’s living room. Sure. That makes sense. He shouts, “Can we go someplace _quieter?_ ”

Whatever Gabriel says, he doesn’t hear, but the light goes. The sound must, too – he can’t feel his teeth vibrating with it anymore – but hell if he can tell over the ringing in his ears.

He opens his eyes to the blessed dim of Bobby Singer’s basement. Past Gabriel, he can see the door swing an inch, then another, then freeze.

In a second, Sam Winchester’s going to push it open the rest of the way.

Cas was here? Cas was--

No. Doesn’t matter. He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and shakes his head to clear the buzz before staring hard at Gabriel, who has his hip propped against Bobby’s workbench. “You find what you were looking for?”

“Nah, not yet.” He roots through the rusting tools spread out behind him, selecting one at random to toy with. “Home’s a lot bigger than I remember, is all. You still haven’t found the runt?”

Home. It’s a slip, has to be. But there’s nothing more readable about Gabriel’s face now than there’s ever been.

It’s the door – moving open one inevitable inch at a time – that drives him back to the subject at hand. “I’m going as fast as I can. I’ve only got half of the flask left, maybe less—“

Gabriel’s haywire attention span tracks back. “You what?” He snaps the wire strippers in his hand shut. “Whoa now. How many places have you been?”

“Uh—I lost count.”

“7, 8? I know these are big numbers for you, kiddo—“

He shrugs, guessing: “14, 15.”

Gabriel whistles.

Sam drops into impatience. “What?”

“S’a lot, is all,” Gabriel answers, dropping the wire strippers with a clack. “These little scenes might get a little bit nasty, soon.”

There’s nothing in the tone to indicate he’s about to take off, but Sam knows that’s not enough to go by. He takes a lunge forward, grabbing him by the jacket collar. “So get me to him. Enough fucking around.”

He catches up Sam’s wrist, and Sam grabs his wrist. They stand there, locked – but it’s Sam’s wrist that’s slowly getting crushed, not Gabriel’s. “I got you this far,” the archangel answers slowly. “Take some initiative.” Then Gabriel’s gone.

Or, more accurately, Sam’s gone. And someone’s screaming: “ _Annael--!_ ”

“ _Fuck._ ” Sam throws his hands over his ears. More loud - and more bright, too—there’s only the briefest hints of movement amongst the light. There’s something blazing – and just as rapidly dimming— at his back and in front ( _his brothers press him back; he will plead, even if Uriel is too proud--_ )

He looks over his shoulder, and the light fractions apart to Annael: the bare edges of her alone are more beautiful than anything she could’ve ever been on Earth, even as the grace bleeds from her in rivers--

His perception drops out to nauseatingly still reality: he’s standing on a catwalk, drowning in industrial fumes and _real._

Sam blinks blearily and stares at—well, Annael. Anna. The red-haired, human Anna, except this one, he thinks, is the one with Grace. There’s an angel at each elbow, and she’s staring at the empty space two feet to his left with what could easily pass for a promise of violent revenge.

He breathes the stale air and relishes the quiet.

When he’s close enough to calm again, he pushes past the angel that more-or-less killed him once and finds a patch of concrete that’ll suit his needs. It’s tough going by the one pathetic security light, but he’s got the sigil wrapped up in muscle memory, now. He presses his fingers down blind. It must be right; the concrete’s melting beneath his hand, and Sam – he’s doubling over and choking, palms against burning earth.

Sulfur – he’s breathing sulfur – or, Jesus, _trying_ to –

“ _We knew--_ ”

The voice is in his head, disorienting. Not Cas. Zachariah. That son of a _bitch_ Zachariah -

“-- _fast enough_ \--”

He digs his fingers into rock, scalding, and blinks furiously to see through weeping eyes. Red, and blood, and yellow – everything’s too vivid, not _bright_ but the goddamn opposite, oversaturated – he breathes the acid air and thinks, no, it is God damned, it’s _Hell—_

Chaos at his back, screams without end, and in front of him, both close and far through the barely breathable air is something a little too bright, for this. A little too clean, but dimming quick. Two broad swaths of white, weeping light – bits of it, like dust? – to the ground.

Not dust, feathers.

Wings.

The thing takes an uncertain step back, and more feathers fall.

The shape of it, him, _it_ doesn’t make sense. But then there it is. Its head drops aside, a confused dog. Sam laughs – one hoarse, pathetic noise – at the familiarity of it.

Castiel steps back, and a half-dozen feathers shake free to burn on the rock and blood. There’s something impaled in what could pass for his chest: a knife, or a pipe, Sam’s eyes are too blurred to tell. And past him, Dean.

God, no, _Dean._

Sam draws a shuddering breath and shoves back, cuts his palms open on the jagged edges of rock with the rushed, clumsy movement but he’s still staring forward, seeing how his brother’s fingers are curled to match the shape of the handle, a thin veneer of surprise beneath that half-lidded and dull-eyed stare.

The righteous man: farther from God than anyone.

“ _We knew you wouldn’t be fast enough._ ”

The vision shudders as it corrects itself. Not white wings: black. Cas is small, and grey, and falling to his knees. Head bowed, but turned aside to listen.

“Cas,” Sam wheezes. “ _Cas._ ”

The lines of him, they fade, and Sam moves to scream his name. He can’t make his throat work. His voice shatters and breaks, and he chokes on the silence.

Cas melts into black. Dean stays, soot and blood and disbelief, and stills.

Surprise. Glazed, dull-eyed, and—no. It’s not right. He knows him, knows _Dean_ and there’s something—there’s something begging, there. Something alive, before it burns away. Everything burns here--

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zachariah demands penitence.

Rec'd listening: A Perfect Circle - [Imagine](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktv2C9vnRKU).

[ ](http://i41.tinypic.com/vmul55.jpg)

 

 

 

 

At the far end of the axis, there is a chair. It’s oak, straight-backed and without ornamentation; it rests on an equally plain platform above a hardwood floor.

Castiel’s brothers propel him towards it before they depart. He stumbles and falls short, catching himself on his palms to stare into the polished floor.

He knows enough to know that he is far from the Garden. Far from the Fields, the Gates – any of the Heaven he frequented. He knows enough to know that he’s been here once before.

To his right is a platform set high above the rest of the room; a judge’s bench. The chair before him is a witness stand. Behind him are two tables, and behind them, more chairs, dozens in rows, all of them empty. It’s a courtroom. A human courtroom. And leaning against the lawyer’s podium directly before the judge is Zachariah, wearing the visage of the same human he wore on earth.

He can see the shine of the true Heaven beneath the shoes of Zachariah’s vessel. This is the Court, hidden beneath a sham. Just as that sallow-faced executive masks the true Zachariah. Castiel is bare before him, his flagging grace no doubt dim and pathetic in the light of this place. And yet Zachariah does not deign him worthy of viewing his true form. It’s meant to shame him.

It’s alright. This balding human is more true to his character.

Slowly, expressionlessly, Zachariah looks him over. Then an abrupt and disconcertingly cordial smile splits his face. “Castiel! You made it. Take a seat.” Zachariah’s voice carries through the false courtroom, echoing within the empty spaces.

Little other options present themselves; so in slow, mechanical motions he finds the arm of the chair, drags himself upright and does as told.

“You like the set? Borrowed it from _A Few Good Men,_ ” Zachariah confides. Castiel studies him with cold indifference. Straightening his suit with a tug at the jacket hem, Zachariah orders, “On your feet.”

Castiel considers disobedience. But in a way, he’s curious. So again, he does as told.

His time on Earth has taught him that he has always been bad at disobedience.

There’s a scroll in Zachariah’s hands now, held high for theatric effect. He reads from it, no doubt paraphrasing; “Castiel—do you prefer Cas, now?” The nickname is spoken with bland distaste, spilling ill-pronounced from his tongue. Taking note of Castiel’s continued apathy, Zachariah resumes his recital. “Castiel, then. Of the 3rd—well, no, I suppose you’re not of any garrison at all now, are you? Never mind that. You’re hereby charged with murder, treason, and obstruction of the Will of God.”

“A trial,” Castiel surmises, voice a dry rasp.

“I’m in a generous mood,” Zachariah announces smugly. “You have a right to judgment before your peers—“ he drags a hand to the left and right, showing where a jury would sit. And beyond, in Heaven, the places where angels of his own garrison would have stood and vouched for his character.

He stares at the bare benches, the first cold touches of dread threading slowly through him.

Zachariah continues: “The presiding arbiter will be me, of course. As we know you’ve waived your right to legal counsel, and with the vast majority of our kin being occupied as of late, I’m afraid I’ll have to step in as the prosecution as well. You also have the right to appeal – all the way up to the archangels themselves if you’d like - but I’ll make sure your pathetic soul is rotting in the foulest depths of Hell long before they ever hear a word of it.” All spoken with a cordial smile, of course. “You accept these stipulations?”

It’s a mockery. It’s all a mockery.

“Michael will hear of this,” he threatens, only because he wants it to be true.

“Michael doesn’t have the time to pander to his pathetic little vessel’s last wishes anymore,” Zachariah answers, tone calm, gaze malicious. And that is the truth.

The empty court rings silent, and slowly, reluctantly Castiel accepts that Zachariah is his only judge; no brothers, certainly no Father.

It will be Hell for him, or oblivion.

Fine.

The dread remains, suffocating, but fury is what seeps through the slow, careful cadence of his response. “I’ll drag you to Hell with me, you gutless bastard.”

The balding executive smiles serenely, bending to scrawl something across the meaningless sheet of paper. He speaks as he does. “You’re familiar with the review procedure?” he asks, not bothering to look up. “Of course you are, I had the pleasure of evaluating you myself last time. Should have executed you then, but you repented so convincingly--” Now he raises his eyes, his expression one of carnivorous enthusiasm. “Feel free to repent this time around. It won’t earn you any favors, but it’ll amuse me.”

He’s looking to the windows, ignoring him. He could escape, for all of a second. Waste the last of his grace on one last flight.

Zachariah is reviewing his falsified handiwork. “Well, this all seems to be in order. Alright, then!” The pen slams against the podium. Zachariah stalks toward him in broad, eager paces, his arms spread wide. “Do you have any particular events in mind, or should we just dig all the way through that festering little head of yours?”

Castiel’s fists, held tense by his sides, dare him to move closer.

It’s a laughable threat; Castiel’s aware of that. Still, Zachariah draws to a halt three paces away, dropping his voice to a saccharine sympathy. “All the court asks is your cooperation, Castiel. We’d like this to be as just a procedure as possible.”

He’s only thought to make for the Fields – he could find them, he’s sure, in a desperate, not-very-sure way – when the hellhounds shudder into existence on his periphery, reeking of rotting flesh and soured blood. They’re mere recreations, but the damage they can do will be real enough.

“You’d shed blood in our Sacred Halls?” He shouldn’t be surprised or appalled, but he is. He can’t believe this—this _absurd_ ending.

Zachariah closes the distance between them in slow, measured steps, his voice as cheerful as ever. “Firstly, they’re not yours anymore. Secondly, I can’t kill you. But you know, the rules don’t say much about maiming.” He has what he wants: Castiel stands unmoving, attention shifting from the hellhound on his left to the hellhound on his right. But of course it’s Zachariah that seizes him, forcing him to the floor with the snap of whole, hale wings being thrown open.

Castiel digs worthless fingers into the meat of Zachariah’s vessel’s neck. His grace is translucent against what patches of the greater angel’s essence he can see. “Now,” Zachariah ponders aloud. “About the beginning.”

Fingers skate his skull, and Zachariah’s essence hooks his own. The world bleeds white – as blindingly white as the Gates and more – as Zachariah hisses, too close, deafeningly loud, “How’s that go? Ah, right: in the beginning, there was Light.”

Castiel twists away from the bright as it grows and spills and sears through his mind.

Zachariah laughs in the smothering silence. “Oh. You weren’t around for that part, were you?”

Brighter, and brighter still: Castiel chokes, “Stop—“ but Zachariah has found purchase. He digs his claws into the ragged remnants of his grace, hooking threads of memory with blunt twists of essence. He is saying, “Let’s start somewhere relevant,” and Castiel is not hearing; Castiel is screaming—

Into dim, into dust. The light fades to the mere outpouring of one angel’s grace.

His fingers slip on the handle of the blade he’d been holding, and his sister writhes aside. This is the end: they are beginning with the end. He’s shaking, trembling with the mere effort of his failed escape. They chased him here, funneled him effortlessly into this place of industry, where he has struck another sibling down.

His sister screams, and he hates the sound. It sounds like eternity breaking.

“Be still, Castiel.” His brother spits his name like profanity over the _crack_ of snapping bone. He does not realize his arm has been caught until it’s broken, and the sword that killed his shrieking, writhing sister clatters against the ground.

Hysteria is what drives the words of an old, dead prophet into his head: _he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword._

His foot catches on a ragged edge of concrete; he turns and meets his brother in the soft press of his belly, throwing him to the ground. The tendon of his arm tears, breaks, as a sound an animal would make reverberates in his throat.

“Be still,” his other sister says, and pulls him away, fingers deep enough in the skin of his collarbone to draw blood.

_He that killeth with the sword--_

“Be still,” they say.

“Be still.”

_\--must be killed with the sword._

Be still.

Castiel screams defiance; Zachariah drags him away.

♤ ♤ ♤

That prophet, the very same, said: _And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it. And shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them._

♤ ♤ ♤

He hangs from Castiel’s fist by the collar of his shirt. Samuel. His knees are loose, arms slack, because he was surprised. Not clumsy but unguarded, trusting.

Numb fingers that sang when they hit – twice. Rib. Face.

It’s satisfying for three, four seconds. Viciously satisfying. And then it isn’t.

Sam curls his hand around the thin bones of Castiel’s wrist and tears the clumsy fingers away. He spits blood – thick – and says, “Fuck off, Cas. Fucking _drown_ for all I care.”

 _He used a street preacher,_ Castiel hears. _I was not there in time._

Sam is a wall of curved spine under moonlight, later, the only flesh visible fingers pressing against broken ribs. He’s elsewhere. Asleep. Elsewhere like humans can be.

Cas – Castiel - _Cas_ presses a steadier hand to his side and tries to heal him. He doesn’t succeed. Just stares in dull amazement, swallows dryly, and wheels away with worthless fingers clutched to his chest.

Dean is there to greet him. His hands are pressed to the bloody sigil that Castiel taught him, and he’s saying, “Hey, Cas” to get his attention.

His expression is one of a sneer.

The room bleaches to white, and resolves as corrugated steel: a door. The dial of a Master Lock turns easily in his hands. The chain it’s wrapped up in is cold beneath the sun, and it rattles against the factory door’s handle in an echo of the pounding hands of those within. He snaps the lock shut with steady fingers and thinks, _Zachariah_. What does Zachariah have to do with St. Louis?

No, not St. Louis. This town, it’s north of St. Louis; and the civilians inside, they are infected. Three of the seven. Doesn’t matter, because they’ll burn it all, and won’t realize until after that just one has escaped south, escaped to—

“ _Please_ ,” a woman sobs on the other side. Her skull strikes the door. She’s dragged away, back. The chains rattle once and go silent. She doesn’t scream. No time, Cas wonders.

The place will burn, because it must, because if the virus escapes, if it gets to the city, to St. Louis—

Saint… Louis.

St. Louis burns.

The entire city burns: Michael makes sure of it. Michael has purged the earth of Croatoan. He purged the whole goddamn city. Sam and himself - they caught the outbreak, stemmed the spread but oh, Michael, he knocked the ball out of the park.

He says that, to Sam. Then he laughs. And Sam, Sam just stares at the city from their lonely little front-row view and says nothing.

The flames of the city jump higher, dropping the skyline into the shadow of a smaller room, a room in Carthage, Missouri: he hears, “Castiel,” spoken ruminatively. Lucifer studies him from the confines of his rotting vessel.

“I’m told you came here in an automobile,” he announces across the holy flames. “What was that like?”

It’s sun through the blue tint of the windshield: it spills across his lap, pleasant, warm, and still he itches with unrest. He reaches for the radio dial, but Dean is knocking his hand aside and squalling along to the cacophonic music in his strange, lilting drawl: “ _Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin’--_ ”

He’d leave himself, but it’s Sam who’s catching him by the arm, saying, “No. _Stay_ , you moron.” Stay here, and fall with the rest of us.

Bobby Singer burns in the same yard of rusting metal and broken machinery he died in, and Dean. There is no Dean. There’s just Sam, staring vacantly into the flames. Sam who pushes one unlocked door open and crawls blindly towards fate. Lucifer. The Apocalypse. And God is nowhere: he searches the deserts and the cities and every possible place in-between. He is _nowhere_ and Raphael says, “Didn’t you hear? He’s dead, Castiel. Dead.”

Too fast: it all moves too fast, the shuddering flickers of memory. Madness crawls through the edges of Castiel’s mind and he says, “Stop.”

“Find someone else,” Dean begs. “It’s not me.”

“What do we do?” Sam shouts. He stands in the middle of Robert Singer’s library, hands in fists at his sides. There’s nothing to fight. “How do we get him back? How the fuck do we get him back, Cas!”

 _We don’t,_ he’d answered.

“Didn’t you hear?” Raphael asks.

“Stop,” Castiel repeats.

A man kneels on the pavement before him. A preacher of the streets. “They took him,” he says, his voice laced with dreams of a false Heaven. “I spoke, and they listened. They carried him away.”

“ _Stop,_ ” Castiel demands.

The man staggers as though struck, because he was, once. Castiel remembers the feel of the preacher’s jaw against his knuckles. He tears his palm open on the pavement, curls the Bible across his face and bleats prayers for redemption that no one will bother to hear. Even here. Even Home.

The man says, “O Lord, save me—“

Castiel shouts, “He _won’t_.”

His words roll out across the curved, motionless void of a desert, and he is breathless, dazed by the stillness, the clarity. There’s a dead angel splayed before him. She followed him across the dunes, and he killed her for it. She was the fourth he ever killed.

At last, Zachariah shows himself: he rages at his back, pacing the sands. Castiel thinks he has stumbled across a memory he does not like. The angel there, her wings glass and ash, she was a favorite of Zachariah’s. She was beautiful: Israfiel.

“All this, for _them,_ ” Zachariah spits.

“You are close to blasphemy,” Castiel answers dryly.

Zachariah is abruptly close, hand closing around his throat. “You regret _everything_ you have done.” A promise, a demand? Castiel cares neither way; he’s pliant beneath the weight of the sun.

A thought comes to him: disconnected, but amusing. Human. He smiles and asks, “Don’t you?”

“I don’t like you this way, Castiel,” Zachariah professes, and he splays fingers wide across his chest. “I preferred when you were _obedient._ ” He shoves.

Castiel is hitting a wall, shaking plaques, books. Before him is the broad expanse of an executive desk, and a familiar view beyond: Los Angeles rotting beneath a yellow haze of ozone. He knows the view. To him, it means acceptance, and obedience, and smothered hate.

Zachariah’s office, a land of _sir_ and _yes_ and _of course_.

 _You’ll know where to find him?_ Zachariah asked once.

And he answered, _Sir._

_Take him to Van Nuys._

_Sir._

“I regret this,” he admits to the ceiling.

“And her?” Zachariah asks, throwing him back into the desert sun. Blood blooms fresh on the white of her dress. She doesn’t ask much; only for him to lie there in her place.

“Yes,” he answers, and lets his eyes sink closed.

“No,” Zachariah says. “Not good enough. Again.”

♤ ♤ ♤

An opening in the gates of Hell, and he is first there: he hesitates, but a palm presses between his shoulder blades, and his brother cries, _GO!_ The heat of Hell burns the light from his wings down to a dull gray, and it is a mercy, because the demons almost miss his passing – an arrow let loose – he will find Dean Wincehster, and he will raise him from Perdition—

His brother won’t survive. Sixteen brothers and sisters will fall at the gates of Hell. Unheard of numbers—sixteen immortal things…

“Do you know why we chose you?” Zachariah asks.

He is staring into the damned eyes of a soul. Dean Winchester, it’s called, and he is to save it. Despite the countless souls that shriek and cry and tear at his wings, begging for salvation. Only him – only Dean Winchester. Who does not see what he is, who strikes out blind, an animal, and burns beneath his touch. _This_ soul. Dean Winchester, who stares down at him with the closed eyes of the faithless.

“ _Cas!_ ”

A shout, behind him. _Loud_. And it sounded like _Sam--_

But Zachariah is interrupting, “We knew you would be too late,” and dragging him away.

♤ ♤ ♤

He stands on the fringes of the city, city burned, they didn’t save it, they saved _nothing_ \--

They were too late. They _took him._

Knocked it out of the goddamn park.

Michael is there. In the city. Waiting. He wants to go – fights to go – but Zachariah is claws upon his neck, dragging him back with a whispered “ _Not yet,_ ” and Castiel drives an elbow into his ribs, twists about to meet a choking grasp on his throat. “Be still,” Zachariah snaps, as though he addresses a child. Castiel grins his hate. “Sir.”

Zachariah throws him to Hell, and the baying hounds.

And at the end? _No. Not enough. Again._

♤ ♤ ♤

It doesn’t end.

How long has he been here? How long will he be here?

_How long?_

He catches time in clawed fingers and tries to press it flat, to descry _beginning middle end_ as humans do, as mortals do, but Zachariah is there to gently pry it loose. It drops to the floor and unravels, there, into the confusion of a boundless eternity.

How long? Forever. Again and again and again. Until he learns.

Until he learns what humans have given him.

Humans, that taught him grief, wrath, loneliness, _madness_ \-- and none of it lasts, none of it stays. There’s no axis, no path, nothing _eternal_ in their rotting world and he doesn’t want to be a part of it.

“No,” Sam said. “Stay.”

And Dean said, “Hey, Cas—“

Humans that taught him nothing he needed to know.

He doesn’t want to be human. He doesn’t want to be ‘ _Cas_ ’.

He doesn’t want to _be_.

♤ ♤ ♤

The sun flashes bright, blinding, and Annael. Bright Annael. She presses a kiss to his forehead before she falls – and Uriel will stand by while she tears her Grace free, but he will _not_ , and they will press him back, will cry, _Be silent, brother--_ but he can’t, _Annael--_

He is exhaustion, and agony, and sin.

“You’re compromised, Castiel,” they tell him, and they seem truly sorry for what they must do. He’s never been reprimanded before; he’s never _repented_ before, not before the whole of the Host--

And Annael, Annael stares at him with flat hate as they prepare to drag her to Heaven. She does not remember the first fall. Or, if she does, she does not care. And Dean doesn’t remember the rise, he weeps and pleads, “It’s not me”, but he is the _only_ , he is the _Righteous Man_ \--

The street preacher holds his Bible high, fear on his face, “ _O Lord save me”_

 _He WON’T_ Castiel screams—

He has looked _everywhere,_ and there is _nothing,_ his wings are bare with the distances and there is—

“-- _No WILL,_ ” Uriel proclaims, strongest in the garrison, strongest and bravest, and he lights the world with pain.

Dean smirks around his arrogance, faithless still. _Which, if there even IS a—_

The fist within his jacket is immovable. His brother will not let him go. Castiel will not try to escape. “No _Wrath._.”

Dean stares through him with the eyes of the damned.

“ _No God._ ”

Dean says, “Hey, Cas,” to get his attention. To make sure he sees, as he presses his bloodied hand to the sigil of banishment that Castiel taught him.

 

 _For_ them.

 

Dean says, “Hey, Cas—“

♤ ♤ ♤

He forgets Zachariah. He forgets Home. He loses track of _No. Not enough. Again._

Annael falls. The Righteous Man weeps, and stares. His brothers and sisters burn. Sixteen.

When hysteria bubbles to his throat, when the madness sinks its teeth into the base of his spine – then they hold him to the ground and hysteria is blood, choking his words, and they whisper _Be still_ while he thrashes and suffocates in silence. _Be still._

_Be silent, Castiel—_

_Be still._

 

 

Until finally, he is.

He does not speak. Does not think. He is regret: battered smooth, blank, by the relentless waves.

With distaste, Zachariah says, “That’s enough.”

♤ ♤ ♤

He kneels in ash and dirt.

A new memory: “I’ve been saving it,” Zachariah confesses.

It’s not so new.

St. Louis.

When the seraphim of Michael’s guard force him to his knees, hands upon arms, shoulders, wings, his shirt is soaked through with blood. It’s in his mouth, streaked across his face. Dripping. Flowing. His nose is broken, once again, and this time it won’t heal correctly.

Dean Winchester stands before him.

Michael, within him.

He is without humor or animation when he says, “Castiel” in all the right intonations.

Castiel stares back, stolen blue eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, and doesn’t.

They had stared at him in confusion, the angels that had dragged him kicking and snarling to the steps. They were expecting defiance screamed in the face of Michael, slayer of Lucifer, destroyer of Dean Winchester. But he only fell silent and still.

He’s memorized this face – Dean’s. What had always been lines of anger or concern or laughter or whatever else in the strange and most times incomprehensible mind of Dean Winchester – now, now it’s smoothed over by a superior grace. Eyes over-bright. Posture too correct. Not Dean. Not _Dean._

What words are there for that?

A seraphim at his back hazards, “Shall we kill him?”

“He’s a lost brother,” Michael answers quietly. He makes Dean sound kind, compassionate, but none of it carries to his eyes.

“He’s slain dozens of his own kin--”

They offer names in shouts: “Azrael!” “Israfiel!” Their memories are long. They know them all.

Castiel had forgotten how many. They jostle him, and tear the ligaments of his wings. Ensure that he will _remember_ , but he will not.

He killed for nothing.

Died for nothing.

The muscles of Michael’s jaw work, one precise motion as he pulls his teeth together and settles his eyes upon the crowd. The angels are parting for nothing more than a human. “Oh, Samuel,” Michael says in cordial greeting.

Sam. Samuel. Who will not let him go. The angels part, and Castiel sways back. But Sam has him by the arms, a bruising grip, minor thing—

No. The seraphim release him, and Sam catches him with arms around his chest, dragging him back in a strange embrace.

It’s different. Dissonant.

Michael says, “Neither are to be touched.”

Sam whispers, rushed, urgent: “Cas, it’s _me_ \-- Do you get it? It’s me, Cas, it’s _me,_ c’mon—“ Castiel only shuts his eyes. “Goddamn it. I don’t have -- _Cas!_ ”

Silence.

Zachariah is standing at Michael’s shoulder, studying the fruits of his labor with a bottomless pride.

Castiel is staring at Dean.

“Hey, Cas,” he had said, bloodied hand raised, and in that strangely human way, he was a dozen emotions at once: among them determination, a directionless anger, and shame.

Then he had said, “Sorry.”

Foolish, faithless Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man, and his cursed brother. A year he’s spent with Sam Winchester, and come to think of it, he has no idea why. There’s no ties there. No blood. And yet.

Sam said, “Stay,” and Castiel asked, “Why?” and Sam said, with some illogical certainty, “Because.”

No ties, no blood. And yet he does not doubt at all that Sam Winchester might have damn well died for him.

And he has to admit a small upwelling of disbelief. Humans. Humans and their damned nicknames, and their damned emotions, and their damned loyalty.

There’s a memory attempting to drag him back, away from the danger of Michael and his kin.

But Sam – the real Sam – he’s gone.

And Cas knows how to follow. He even has just enough grace. One last flight--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return to the Axis Mundi.

Rec'd listening: Third Eye Blind - [God of Wine](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDipxXOL8yk) & Thrice - [Kings Upon the Main](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIq5rDpCa-Y).

[ ](http://i41.tinypic.com/117shao.jpg)

 

 

 

 

He’s out.

Son of a bitch, he’s _out._

Sam slams a fist against a tree. Overhead, its leaves shake.

Sticks crack under his feet and _fuck_ this is Mobile, ’95, and he’s waiting on Dean, of course—not that Dean’ll be coming-- and the fucking _flask—_

He tears the cap off, shakes it twice, and not a drop comes out. With a snarl, he chucks it into the leaf litter. “God _damn_ it!”

He’s stuck.

He’s stuck on his own stupid path, and he didn’t even get to Cas. He laid a hand on him for five stupid seconds. And Cas just stared – covered in blood, thin and worthless beneath his hands. Yeah, he remembered that. Doing seventy over broken streets with images of Cas’s head on an angel-slaying spike. The crowd parting before him, because _Sam Winchester is not to be touched,_ and Dean—God. Dean.

Yeah, he remembers that whole thing well. Even remembers the six hours of patching up the stupid, stupid angel afterwards.

And Cas just… stared.

 _Fuck._ He didn’t even _hear._

He’s stuck – Cas is stuck - Gabriel’s off doing— _whatever_ —if he had ten bucks he’d bet it on the Garden, since that’s where all paths seem to lead, and an archangel has got to have a question or two for God’s only earpiece—but Jesus, of all the _times_ \--

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he snaps at the trees. Just as compulsively, he’s stomping through the leaf litter, shoving rotting leaves and pinecones aside in search of the stupid worthless flask. He continues his diatribe while he does. “Can’t find an angel in _Heaven_ of all the goddamn—stupid---damn places—“ He gets distracted by his knuckles ringing on the flask’s empty side. He fumbles for it, grabs it, but another two vicious shakes gets him nothing; with a hissed, “ _Shit,_ ” he slams it against a tree.

He’s too busy crashing around to hear Castiel land. Even the rustle of leaves when Castiel collapses goes unnoticed.

That, Castiel is content with. It allows him a moment or two to stare at the stars. He’s fairly certain he hasn’t seen the stars in quite awhile, and that’s a shame. At the mountaintops – the Rockies – they were against a black sky, and innumerable in number –

And now, Sam is hovering over him. Castiel frowns at him. He’s blocking the stars. Always in his way –

♤ ♤ ♤

He dreams of dark, even in Heaven.

He wakes to a fire, low, crackling, and thick with smoke. The smoke obscures Sam’s face, lit pale on the far side of the flames. He’s kneading his forehead with his fingers.

He actually came. Unbelievable.

Castiel presses his hands forward to the warmth of the fire and says nothing.

There’s a new sleeve on his arm – a plaid shirt. In far better condition than what he arrived in, no doubt. Bloodied rags of a t-shirt borrowed from Dean’s untouched duffel and never returned.

Sam, bare-armed, drops his hand and looks him over. “Good to see you, Cas.”

‘Cas.’

He flexes his fingers once and withdraws them from the heat.

Resting his head against his palm, elbow against knee, Sam asks, “You know where you are?”

Castiel stares at him over the fire. “Of course.” His voice is a ragged mess, wrapped up in the constraints of Sam’s personal Heaven.

“Just checkin’, man,” Sam answers. He gets to his feet – the tower of Babel, Castiel thinks, swaying on the wind – and shuffles around the fire to kneel beside him. “You hurt anywhere? I looked you over before, but I couldn’t find anything.”

His wings are fractured, worthless. His grace is a guttering flame. It doesn’t hurt in a way Sam would understand. He answers, “No.”

“Good.” He hooks a hand in the collar of Castiel’s shirt, dragging him upright. Confused and dizzied by the movement, Castiel slaps his fingers against his arm, but Sam’s just as soon letting go. He very nearly tumbles back into the leaves; would have, if it weren’t for Sam catching him in a crushing embrace.

“I’m gonna kick your ass as soon as we’re Earthside,” Sam confesses to his shoulder.

Castiel’s still disoriented enough to stay resolutely limp within the hold, answering only with a hoarse, “Alright.”

He moves to let Castiel go, at last, but his fingers brush wing in passing. It probably feels like no more than a spark of static to him, but he’s startling back nonetheless, holding Castiel by both shoulders as he squints at the dark beyond him.

“Don’t worry. They’re only half there,” Castiel provides. His tone is bleak.

“I saw them, uh—a while back.” He frowns, distant, then drags his focus back. “Hey, since we’re here, can we get it back? Fix your Grace?”

“No.” Castiel drags himself back, settling into a cross-legged position at a distance from Sam. “I don’t simply – recharge. This damage is permanent.”

“Oh. Well.” He allows the appropriate pause for sympathy before he grins, a broad, sincere gesture. Castiel finds himself frowning, again, and just as inexplicably directing his eyes toward the ground. If Sam’s troubled by the response it doesn’t show in his voice. “How the hell did you find me? I honestly thought I was screwed there. I thought you couldn’t even hear me.”

“I heard.” Before Sam can answer, he’s rolling on: words slow, deliberate, but too insistent for Sam to interrupt. “Sam. You shouldn’t have come, not here. I can’t guarantee that anyone will have an interest in resurrecting you save Lucifer.” And he won’t even begin to ask _why_ , the idiot…

“Hopefully there’s no resurrection involved. I had some help - the archangel kind.”

Castiel raises his eyebrows. “Gabriel?”

Sam shrugs amiably in return. “He brought me here, and I’ve got his word that he’ll bring us both back.”

“He probably killed you. The reaper that came for you would provide a unique opportunity to reenter Heaven.”

To that, Sam gives pause, but the answer’s still inadequate. Just a lofty, “It’s not my first time in Heaven.”

Castiel’s impatience rises, stymied only by his exhaustion. “He used you to his own ends.”

“I found you,” Sam answers, and still with that pleased grin. “And dude, it was not easy. Now we just have to find Gabe, right? It’ll be fine.”

“Gabriel’s solely self-serving,” Castiel answers. As always, Sam is missing the point. “He’s only here for his own gain.”

 _Screensaver face_ , is the name Dean gave the face Sam’s making. An idiom, in itself, but Cas knows it means he’s listening, but isn’t hearing. “I think he’s in the Garden,” he says.

Castiel knows a lost cause when he sees it. He relents. “I have no notion of how far the Garden is from here.”

“My path.” Sam waves a hand towards the trees. “Leads straight there, right? So we follow it to the Garden, find our ride, and get back home.”

“If he has any interest in keeping his word, and if Zachariah does not find us first.”

“So keep an ear to the airwaves and help me find the road. You owe me a beer for this, by the way. And a good punch. And laundry for at least two weeks.”

Sam is being loud, cheerful. Loud is a familiar quality: when Dean was particularly loud or deflective, he was threatened. This, on Sam, hangs like the same cloak of insecurity, if ill-fitted. He’s ignoring him because Gabriel is his only hope. He’s attempting to cheer him because Castiel – well – Castiel is his only reason for being here.

So if it will soothe him, he’ll grant him a boon. He’ll even grant him a small smile. After all, it’s been a long, long time since they’ve seen a victory. Strange shade of victory that this might be. “Alright. Two weeks.”

“And beer, and a punch. I won’t forget that part, so don’t even try to worm out of it.”

Castiel will be regretful to move on. He enjoys the stars of this particular memory.

It turns out that his legs are not what they were, when he attempts to stand. Sam is quick to weave beneath him, this time particularly mindful of the wings that are only half-there. They leave the fire to burn. Soon enough it will cease to be.

“Meteor shower,” Sam explains while they walk. He’s working on tucking a silver flask into his pocket. “I was—8, maybe? I was waiting on Dean. He was—well. Dealing with Dad.” There’s a pause, there; one with meaning. When he continues, there’s a new distance between him and the story. “First time he let me go ahead on my own, in the dark. Kid’s first glorious moment of freedom, y’know? I think there’s a road up ahead.”

Castiel knows these stories, most of them. He’s wise enough to thread together Sam’s silences. “Your father was incapacitated.”

“And Dean was being Dean. God forbid the old man look like less of a hero in my innocent eyes. I knew. I was glad Dean was the one that had to deal with it.” His eyes have fallen to the path, though there’s no light by which to avoid roots. “I was ashamed of Dad, and I worshipped him at the same damn time. Big, confusing mess. It all got so much easier once I decided I hated him.” Sam glances at him, rolls his shoulders. “Sorry, Cas. This is all pathetic next to all of your-- stuff.”

And Castiel remembers, briefly, some of what he’s learned. A turn of phrase: “You’ve been crawling through my past. It’s only fair I hear yours.”

He’s rewarded with a laugh, bitter though it may be. “No offense, Cas, but your past didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

A hum of agreement.

They move in the relative silence of the chirring bugs and crackling leaves. Sam’s question, though obviously mulled, comes from nowhere: “Do you hate your Dad?”

Castiel remains silent through several paces. “I don’t understand Him.”

“That’s as good a reason as any.”

“And your reasons aren’t?” he asks. It isn’t malicious. “You still pray.”

He probably shouldn’t point out that he listens to such things, but Sam seems unperturbed by it. “I’ve got issues with your Dad, but they aren’t nearly as bad as the ones I’ve got with mine.” Unperturbed doesn’t mean he’ll let it go. Sam pokes a finger into Castiel’s shoulder. “Prayer radar? Any other freaky tricks you’ve got left?”

“After this, I don’t know.”

“Bask while you can. You never know what might come back.”

“I don’t _bask._ ”

“Maybe we can find a harp for you to play. Would that work? Get together a nice little angelic choir. _‘If music be the food of love, play on…’_ ”

Castiel groans. “Even here, the sound of your voice is grating.”

“ _Cas,_ ” Sam says, scandalized. “Was that a joke I heard?”

He ignores him, silence. Sam huffs a laugh and pauses – a sign of a weightier statement to come. Sure enough: “You sound a lot more _you_ here, Cas. Y’know?”

He doesn’t. He nods anyway.

“Good to have you back,” Sam concludes.

Castiel keeps to silence. Flattered, perhaps, or insulted, or both. Finally he says, “The path is not necessarily a road. Just because your brother took the metaphor so literally—“

“Yeah, I know. Postcards, trinkets, whatever. Not my first time, remember?” Sam waves a hand at the empty path, the still and silent trees. “You see anything that looks memorable to you?”

“I do.” In truth, it’s a cheat – there are enough vestiges of grace in him to see the strange glint that the threads of the axis possess. They’re simply harder to see than before. And impossible to follow by flight, not with his wings as withered as they are.

This thread is up.

He points, and Sam’s eyes follow. One meteorite, and then two: all with their peculiar gleam, and only brighter against the strange backdrop of Heaven’s effervescent sky. A small smile brings a gentle curve to Sam’s lips, and with his happiness – his connection to the next – the fabric of Heaven shifts.

The farther the last meteor drops, the hotter it burns. At last it bursts, scattering fragments of light across the black canvas of night that shine bright, burning the shadows of the trees through. When they dim and coalesce, it’s not as flecks of burning rock but as light bulbs, lined up in neatly spaced rows. Some blinking, some solid: a ruckus of lines, colliding and passing. A carnival, its rows of booths and spinning amusement rides blinding under the same night sky.

“Cool,” Sam’s saying, the same smile on his face. He takes only a precursory glance at the glamour of the lights before he’s scanning the midway, intent upon the mulling, faceless crowd. “This is Indiana,” he says. His initial exuberance seems to fade with the longer he searches the crowd. He lets the topic drift off: “They bring the whole thing in on trucks, did you know? Just plop it down in a field.”

Extracting himself from Sam’s hold, Castiel catches his weight fully upon his feet. “Who did you come here with?”

Sam looks him over, watching for any undue sway. He isn’t smiling anymore. “Dean, who else?”

The look upon his face when the ten-year-old slaps him on the back with a scolding, “ _Samantha_ ,” is, for lack of a better word, priceless.

Dean is a young, freckled whirlwind: quick movements, quicker words. “C’mon, you know better than to wander off. You think I can find your skinny butt in this crowd?” He knuckles his shoulder, but just as quickly his eyes are darting off to the right. “Hey, sharpshooter game. Last quarter, dude. You wanna give it a go?” He offers the quarter in an open palm, bright under the midway lights.

Sam speaks slowly, words remembered across the years: “Those games’re all rigged, and you know it.”

Dean waves the quarter, a grin on his face. “We’ll just see about that, Sammy. There’s a tiara over there with your name on it. Come on!” He takes off at a sprint, dodging the adults to reach the far side. Sam and Castiel watch his passing with a fascination that is one and the same.

In the quiet of his absence, Sam huffs in disbelief. “He stole that money off a shell game vendor.”

“I’m not familiar with the game.”

“Doesn’t matter. Guy was obviously cheating, kinda deserved it. You good to walk?”

“I’ll manage.”

He does – slowly. Tethering himself to one human’s axis is an effort when he would rather fall by the wayside and _sleep_. By the time he’s hobbled over, Dean has shucked his jacket and shoved it into Sam’s arms. He’s intent upon taking aim at a series of paper-thin tin figurines, rigged to follow set tracks amongst bland scenery. They begin to move with a series of whirrs and clacks. Dean pulls the trigger and, after a huff of air from the rifle, a deer falls with a loud _ping_. A buck, two moose, and a wolf follow.

The vendor whistles. “Damn, kid.”

Dean doesn’t answer, set to his task: each fire is a hit.

“My brother, the arcade prodigy,” Sam announces.

He isn’t fishing for a response; only remembering, reliving. Castiel nods along and bides his time in the silence of camaraderie. Dean’s rapidfire shots continue – _ping, ping, ping_ – and Castiel’s attention wanders from the unfamiliar youth to the jacket in Sam’s arms. It has a thread to it. He hesitates. Sam looks secure in this memory, fond - but the threads don’t always last.

So, reluctantly, he says, “Sam,” and gestures towards it.

For a moment, Sam doesn’t catch on. Then he looks the jacket over more closely, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “That easy, huh?”

“Is it familiar?”

“Yeah. Ended up a hand-me-down once Dean grew out of it.” He frowns at it and begins to rifle through the pockets.

At their back, the vendor says, “Well, I guess that makes you one helluva winner.”

Sam is pulling a slip of paper – a photograph, folded – out of the pocket. He presses the creases out on the worn table of the booth, studies the faded pigments. Heaven moves as his face shifts towards comprehension.

Castiel lunges forward, catching Sam’s shoulder.

He nearly overbalances: in the next memory, a man is grabbing Sam – who is at once twenty-seven and seven - and dragging him towards his chest, an awkward half-embrace. Dean hovers at the man’s knee, no more than a year older than before.

Castiel recognizes him, of course. John Winchester.

Castiel catches his weight on Sam’s shoulder and shoves off, backing up two steps to allow them their space. They’re leaning against a truck: one that Castiel suspects he would recognize from those rusting in Bobby Singer’s salvage lot, as it’s Bobby Singer himself that’s to his right, half-bent behind the silver flash of his aging camera.

Sam passes him an uncertain glance before Bobby’s announcing, “Sit still, Sam. Flash ‘em if you got ‘em.”

The family poses, and the camera shutter snaps.

Once the flash fades they’re immediately dispersing: Dean sprints forward. “Was that good? I did smile, y’know—“

“It’s fine, Dean,” Bobby answers with the worn-thin patience of a surrogate parent.

John’s setting Sam down – though Sam’s feet are already firmly on the ground – and scrubbing a hand through his hair, a gesture Sam shrinks beneath. “See? Regular family portrait, kiddo. All set, Singer?”

Sam rubs at his mussed hair, succeeding only in rearranging the angles of the various spikes and waves. “You seeing anything?”

“Not yet. You seem to be enjoying this.”

Sam gives his family a passing glance – gaze lingering a little overlong on his father, Castiel notes – before he shrugs and paces towards the truck. “Well, we gotta keep on keeping on. Let’s check the Impala.”

It’s parked just beyond the truck; as Sam moves, Castiel follows at his slower pace. Sam pulls the door open and begins to dig around the passenger seat. Castiel leans against the back door, head back to study a clouded sky.

“I didn’t expect your fonder memories to involve your father,” he eventually muses.

“Heaven’s leaving out the nasty parts,” Sam drawls from the depths of the foot well.

“Yet he’s still here.”

“So are Dean’s Playboy playing cards. So what?” He tosses the aforementioned deck onto the seat and, by the squeak, opens the glovebox.

“You’re allowed to ask, but I’m not?”

Sam rests back on his heels, shuffling through registrations, fake IDs. “Cas, my daddy issues are pretty damn boring. Besides—“ he hesitates, and then begrudgingly adds, “I realized a long time ago he did his best. Hell. Dean’s probably right. We’re practically the same person.”

“Is that an insult? Your father was well-respected.”

Sam stares at the man talking to Bobby Singer and Castiel, in turn, stares at him. “My father was a single-minded ass.” It’s not hate, the lines to Sam’s face. Disappointment, perhaps. But if Castiel were one for hedging bets, he would place one on some amount of love, there, too.

“Maybe next time I’ll stick around long enough to track him down,” Sam says, quietly. “Y’know – the real him. Nowadays I think we’d have a lot more to talk about.”

Castiel’s willing to let the rest of his search pass in silence. The item turns out to be a matchbox. It’s ragged from its stay, jammed into the back corner of the glove compartment. Against what had been ivory paper is the word _Straits_ in gold filigree.

This shift is quick. One moment, Castiel is leaning against the Impala; the next a chair is catching him at the back of the knees. He falls into a seat that’s at an angle to a table of two, one amongst dozens in a small, dark dining room. The atmosphere is one meant for romance: quiet, wordless music, candles as the main source of light. The seat opposite Sam is empty, and Sam—

Castiel pauses, brow drawing together in confusion. “What are you wearing?”

Sam, who’d been taking in the atmosphere in much the same cautious manner, glances at Castiel, glances down at the plaid bowtie, and blushes in the dark. “I borrowed it from my roommate. Tie-only place, alright? And mine—there was bleach, and then the washer—just. Shut up.”

Roommate. Castiel assumes. “This is Stanford.”

“Palo Alto, yeah.” He’s fixated on the door. With good reason: as though on cue it opens, and a young woman walks through. Curls of blonde hair fall to her shoulders in perfect conformation. She looks over the room uncertainly before her eyes settle upon Sam. She smiles prettily, and Sam smiles in return.

“And that—is Jessica Moore,” Castiel says.

“You got it,” Sam answers distractedly, and gets to his feet to greet her.

Her first gesture is toward the tie, as well, with a gentle jab of, “Real nice.”

“Tie-only place,” Sam’s repeating, turning redder still. She kisses him on the cheek.

He shows her to her seat with all the pomp and circumstance this kind of restaurant seems to demand, earning an “Oh, come on, Sam” when he goes so far as to push her chair in for her. She looks flattered nonetheless.

Castiel sinks back, distinctly out of place. Here, unlike the rest, is a private memory, one of his dead lover. But Sam seems content to simply ignore him, and Jessica will take no notice of him, not in the constraints of Sam’s memory. So he simply sinks into his chair and remains silent.

Sam stares at the menu marked _Wine_ in script for quite awhile, the primly-dressed waitress hovering at his elbow. At last, he selects a non-answer: handing the menu to Jessica, he says, “I’ll have what she’s having.” For her part, she waves the menu off. “Do you have Coke?”

“Always,” the waitress answers, disappearing in a flurry.

Jessica props her elbows upon the table and leans over the votive candle. “It’s not too late to escape,” she whispers conspiratorially. “Burgers. In-n-Out. Half a block.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “After you tried on how many dresses?”

“Seven.” She sighs, world-weary. “You just steal Rob’s cheesy little bowtie and call it done. Chump.”

“I’ll be working this bill off for a month.”

“I know what you make. Try two.” She gauges his expression, and Castiel’s distinctly aware that she sees far more than he ever has in Sam’s face. “Well, alright. I’ll sit and look pretty if it’s you I’m bankrupting.”

“Good,” Sam answers, his relief exaggerated. “Had to bribe the maitre d’ with fifty bucks just to get in.”

“With that get-up? Should’ve been at least a hundred,” she teases in return.

The dinner passes. Castiel never speaks a word, never ushers Sam onward. The couple argues over the French wording of the menu, toasts with wine glasses full of Coke to their first anniversary. (“And sixty more,” Jessica adds.) Jessica convinces Sam to order prawns, and Sam convinces Jess to order kalimari. The faces Sam makes over the prawns, when they arrive, set her into a fit of giggling that only grows louder when he attempts to hush her.

This is a different Sam. Quieter, but an easy quiet, a relaxed one. He is wholly entranced in the memory, not a single glance towards Castiel, never a slip from his easy smile to the troubled silence he’s perfected. Not until he recognizes the necklace around Jessica’s neck. He reaches out, slipping the small silver cross over his fingers.

“I remember this,” he announces quietly. This isn’t scripted. Not like the rest.

Sam glances towards Castiel, regret on his face. Jessica smiles, obviously unsure of what to say. Sam solves her dilemma for her: he leans across the table, presses a kiss to her lips, and wraps his fingers around the cross.

♤ ♤ ♤

Again, Castiel’s losing his footing.

This time it’s on loose gravel; he’s back to standing, and it sets him into a sway that would have ended in a fall, had Sam’s hand not caught him by the collar. He heaves him back to a vertical position. “You good?”

“Fine.”

They’re standing at the bottom of a gravel incline. Running along its leveled top are train tracks, an dark iron-blue in the moonlight.

Sam holds up the cross that’s still in his hand – it’s small and plain in the moonlight. “Birthday present from Pastor Jim. Blue Earth, I guess. This path’s supposed to be chronological, isn’t it?” He’s aware again, and somber. Washed clean of the last memory.

“Not necessarily. Call it stream of consciousness.”

“Good. ’cause I’m pretty sure I was—“

Dean’s arrival is as abrupt as it was before. Older, this time: perhaps 20. He drapes an arm around Sam’s shoulders, drops most of his weight against it. There’s a bottle in his hand, by the pungent aroma a strong whiskey.

“Hey. Killjoy. The party is moving _on,_ ” Dean intones.

“16-ish,” Sam finishes.

Oblivious, Dean asks, “Think we can make it to Tulsa tonight?”

“Don’t think so,” Sam answers.

“Could if we tried.”

Sam peels Dean’s arm off, turning him around back the direction he’d come from. “Or we could go find our nice, warm beds back at Pastor Jim’s, how about that?”

“ _Tulsa_ , dude! Land of—shit, what does Tulsa have?”

“Whole lot of nothing, Dean. Same as everywhere.”

“Same as _everywhere_ ,” Dean repeats, throwing some cryptic, meaningful weight into it.

“C’mon, let’s go.” Sam gives him a shove, right between the shoulderblades. Dean rocks forward, catches his feet, and Sam adds, “Beds. Warm.”

Dean turns back on him. “You know what’s happening? _Cards._ You. Me. Ratscrew, Spades, whatever-- You’re goin’ _down_ , Sammy.”

“Totally. Cards are back at the house. Go, I’m right behind you.”

He jabs a finger Sam’s way, face deadly serious. “Down. Downtown.”

Sam keeps his expression straight. “Yup. All the way.”

“Don’t think you get to win just ‘cause it’s your birthday.”

“No way.”

Dean nods, spins about, and stumbles on.

Sam heads in the opposite direction. He hikes up the incline, and Castiel follows – watching, lingeringly, as the Dean of this particular memory slowly sways his way into nothing.

Sam waits for him at the top, heels against the wooden ties beneath the rails. “We used to walk down these tracks all the time.” He gestures down the long straightaway. “Look like a road to you?”

Judging the rails’ gleam, Castiel nods. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

Sam starts off the tracks, moving from tie to tie in a measured step that’s clearly well-learned. “We’d sneak out the back door at night, walk down here. We talked about stuff. Nothing important or anything – argued about baseball and girls and, well – whatever came to mind, I guess.” He smirks. “Put pennies on the tracks.”

“Why?”

“It’s supposed to derail trains. Old wives’ tale to scare kids off, I guess. Really, you just end up with either a flat penny, or a missing penny. We had a lot of both.” He pauses to clear his throat, a delaying gesture. “Before I found you – when I fell behind and ended up in my own memories, Dean wasn’t there. Just the empty space where he was supposed to be. But when you’re here, he’s here. What d’you make of that?”

“You would know better than I,” Castiel answers. “This place is what you make it.”

“Huh.” He must have a guess; they both do. Neither voices theirs.

The silence passes in paces, tie-to-tie, until Sam huffs a laugh. “Are you as sick of waiting as I am?”

When Castiel eventually answers, it’s indirect. “I think I’ll break his nose when he comes back.”

“Harsh, Cas. Though you’re the expert on broken noses. You know it’s still crooked from the last time, right?”

Castiel frowns at him. “I’m aware.”

“You ever get through a fight _without_ getting hit in the snoz?”

“Several.”

“Several? Please. Me, I’ve got a perfect record. Well, mostly. Two times, but they were fractures. Dean’s the all-time winner, as far as style goes: tripped over the curb and planted his face right on a car bumper, once. He was breathing through his mouth for two weeks.” He grins and drops back into silence.

“You forgave him,” Castiel says.

Sam drops his eyes to the ground. “He thought he was right. Maybe he was.”

“He _surrendered._ ”

“Yeah. And we all took it personally.”

“I can’t see how you forgave him.”

“That last bit was kind of a lie, Cas. I haven’t – not yet. Thing is I know I will, eventually, because that’s how this whole stupid brother thing works. He saw a shitty situation for what it was and yeah, maybe he gave up on the both of us, and yeah, I hated him for that. But a shitty situation’s a shitty situation. Eventually I’ll just-- let it go.” On an afterthought, he adds, “After seeing you break his nose, maybe.”

Castiel laughs, despite it all; maybe in spite of it.

“Alright, next heavy question,” Sam says. “Forgetting Zachariah, forgetting the big disobedience - would you want to stay? Here, I mean? In Heaven?”

“As opposed to on Earth?”

“Yeah. Weak imitation though it may be.”

Another long silence. “I miss it,” he admits. “I miss my brothers.”

“Soldier-spiel aside, they are family,” Sam answers. “Right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go. Family.”

“Sam, my family doesn’t—“

Castiel stills, staring down the tracks. The world is the same – railroad tracks and a cool breeze – but the path behind them has changed, warped under a willful hand. “Zachariah’s close. Very.”

Sam catches his arm, dragging him on at a hastened pace. “You see the Garden yet?”

He looks distractedly that way, but there’s nothing. “I don’t – I’m not sure.”

“Well just – just go, alright?” He plants a foot, throwing Castiel forward. “I’ll stall him.”

He stumbles back a step and hesitates, doubtful. “Sam, you cannot--”

“I am not tripping the light fantastic through your head again, okay? He wants you, not me.” Sam shoves him. “ _Go_ , Cas!”

This time, Castiel does not let his momentum stall. He takes the stumble back as an opportunity to spin, digs his heel into the splintering wood of a tie, and runs. Behind him, Sam picks up a rock from the ground, bounces it twice in his palm, and waits.

 

With every sixth or seventh step Castiel’s feet catch between gravel and tie, sending him into a stumble, but never a fall. If he could _fly_ , damn it all –

_Please—_

One last stumble. The gravel spreads out into grass, soft beneath bare feet. He pauses for reverence: eyes closed, and a brief prayer, unheard though it may be.

_Please, Father, let this be the Garden._

He opens his eyes.

He sees the Garden as all angels do: the way it was in its days on Earth. The air is cool to the skin, its taste just sweet enough. Honey, ambrosia, and the weighty aroma of innumerable flowers. He runs, shouting his brother’s name as he goes: “Gabriel! _Gabriel!_ ” He runs until he catches a tree by clawed fingers and hangs, waiting for his breath to return. “Niis,” he mutters. _Come._ “Gabriel!”

Eden is silent. It was never this silent, before; but then, it was never empty of his brothers before. All are on Earth. Fighting, and dying. All save him, Gabriel. Joshua.

Of course. Joshua. He always knew where to find Joshua.

Castiel gathers his breath and runs.

Minutes is all it takes, minutes far too long, before he hears their voices: it’s the glade, of course. It’s not a place of particular import; only one pool of water amongst dozens in the Garden. But it’s a place Joshua often frequented, and that Castiel frequented with him, in his younger days.

He rounds the broad leaves of a kauri tree and brings the gardener and Gabriel both into sight. Joshua looks much the same, the form of his Grace austere in his peculiarly humble sense. But Gabriel – Gabriel is a sight, here. Not a pagan god but an archangel, fully fledged, wings broader than any of the lower garrisons. He isn’t as graceful of form as Michael, always the more modest – and, yes, perhaps the less respectful of the two — but nonetheless, he remains one of the greatest of their kind, blinding even after millennia in exile.

He is also in a fury, grace sparking with reds and yellows to match the sharp angles of his wings.

“He won’t intervene,” Joshua says. By the slow, careful pronunciation, it is not the first time he has said it. Gabriel moves to retort, but Joshua turns his head away from him and interrupts with a delighted: “Castiel!” Gabriel snaps his mouth shut, scowling. Joshua has that unique talent: no matter the rank, his quiet mannerisms are enough to silence the loudest of his brothers.

As the gardener looks Castiel over, his expression softens to a gentle sympathy. “Earth hasn’t been kind to you, boy.” It’s not a demeaning term, simply one of Joshua’s strange colloquialisms. Castiel isn’t of the mood; he only offers a brisk, “Hello, Joshua” before turning on Gabriel. “We need to leave.”

Gabriel gives him a passing glance. “Where’s the Sasquatch?”

“Making a foolish attempt at stalling Zachariah,” Castiel answers impatiently. “We need to get back.”

“Patience, little bro, alright? Go, uh—” He looks over Castiel’s wings – held close and low, largely in shame – and twitches an eyebrow. “Take it you didn’t fly here. Fine. Hold tight five minutes, alright, champ? We’re having a healthy argument about deadbeat Dads.”

“One that is largely finished, I think,” Joshua replies.

“No, not really, because it _seems to me_ that Luci’s down there kicking up a hell of a fury looking for him, and y’know, I gotta agree with him. Dad needs to show his face. Dad needs to have a little lesson in _accountability._ ”

“Lucifer is well aware of our Father’s position. A reiteration won’t satisfy him.”

“So He should _smite_ the bastard!”

Castiel sighs, eyes turning skyward.

“Should He mediate all conflicts?” Joshua asks patiently.

“Yeah. Sure. He might miss an episode of _Days of Our Lives_ – or whatever the fuck He’s up to, these days — but life’s a bitch, ain’t it? He should know. He made it.”

“He also made Free Will.”

“Oh, _Free Will._ Don’t even get me started on—“

“ _Gabriel!_ ” Castiel interjects.

His brother ignores him. “Free Will is a fucking _red herring._ Fate’s been king since day one, and everybody knows it. It’s just His excuse for leaving us all to _rot._ ”

“Free Will was a gift,” Joshua answers. His voice, quiet, is a reminder to Gabriel to lower his. “One with consequences, but a gift nonetheless.”

“That’s bullshit, Josh, and you know it,” Gabriel snarls.

“It’s the only argument I have to offer, Gabriel.”

With a huff of disgust, Gabriel turns his back on the gardener. To Castiel, he snaps, “Let’s go rescue the moron.”

“Castiel?” Joshua interjects. “You’re remarkably quiet today.” Castiel says nothing, so Joshua smiles fondly and continues. “You, who badgered me for centuries with questions of Father, and Faith, and Duty. Come, Castiel. Surely you have something to ask.”

“No,” he answers stiffly. “I don’t.”

He turns to leave.

“Hold on,” Joshua calls, and though they have little reason to listen, they do. “Castiel, full of questions, with nothing to ask. A sad sight indeed.” A hand, warm, presses to the space between Castiel’s wings. Castiel turns to answer – or perhaps ask after all what Joshua is doing – but he is interrupted by warmth.

Grace.

Light.

A flood of it, spilling into the heart of him and out – filling, and healing, and smoothing over all the ragged edges of his soul.

For a moment, the Garden is filled with it. The Grace of it.

When it fades, Castiel can only stare. For a moment more Joshua’s hand is still warm against his back, and then it slowly withdraws. But his wings — black, tattered, and worthless wings, singed by thirty years of Hell, battered by an eternity on Earth, broken, at last, by Zachariah’s hand - they’re _whole_ , and white as they were the first day he attempted flight. The purest white, with a fine gold edging of his Grace. He stretches them wide, pinions out to full length, and can only breathe a slow build of awe.

Gabriel stares at him, at the broad expanse of his wings. Then, inexplicably, he drops into a bow. He dips his own wings once and spreads them to half-extension, a gesture reserved for acknowledgment of those of higher rank. At first, nonsensically, Castiel thinks he is bowing to him. But the archangel’s eyes, when they rise, are upon Joshua, and they are overrun with combating emotion. Reverence, love, fear, and wrath.

In all the intonations of an archangel’s voice, Gabriel greets the gardener of Eden. “Father.”

Castiel’s wings snap shut. He spins to face the gardener, who wears the same gently sympathetic expression, and he stands momentarily frozen, unsure of how to compose himself. Awed still he drops to his knees and follows his older brother’s example, though he cannot find the voice to greet Him in the same way.

At his shoulder, Gabriel rises halfway. “ _Here._ All this time.”

Joshua – Father – turns his head aside. “If you would prefer to think of it that way, Gabriel.”

“Where do you get off, _Dad?_ ” Gabriel shouts. “You made them! You made all of them! And left them to _burn!_ ”

Castiel stares at Gabriel – he’s at full height and furious, not some mockery of a demi-god, nor a pale imitation of Lucifer or Michael. An archangel in his own right.

When he pauses to breathe, it’s Castiel and Gabriel both that are waiting for a smiting.

Their Father’s mouth turns in a small, amiable smile. He says nothing; with a fathomless arrogance, Gabriel takes that as permission to continue.

“Whatever happened to Holy Wrath? Righting wrongs? You’re supposed to be _good. The. Good._ And you hide in the _Garden._ I mean—” Gabriel laughs, an echo of his centuries on Earth “—I thought _I_ was bad, but you. You, Dad, are a real piece of work. You’ve turned your back on _everything_. And you’re the one that _made_ it!”

He waits for the span of a breath, but Father only waits.

So he barrels on, fury ever-increasing: “And don’t give me this Hands Off, Free Will bullshit. You’re meddling. You’ve _been_ meddling. How many times have you pieced the Winchesters back together? Hell, you’ve even brought the Boy Scout back once.” Castiel hardly even registers the insult. “So what’s your excuse, Dad? Let’s hear it! Your children are all ears.”

“Do you wish for me to tell you what to do, Gabriel?” And then His attention is abruptly on Castiel. “You believe yourselves to be purely vessels of my Will. Would you have that to be true? Would you have me remove your memories, your choices, and leave you an automaton, Castiel?”

Castiel isn’t prepared to answer, not to his Father. He hesitates. “I—“

“ _Yes,_ ” Gabriel answers for him. “Fine. Ignorance is bliss. If it means this shit comes to an end, then fine. We’re _your_ soldiers. Take some responsibility. _Tell us what to do._ ”

“I cannot.”

“Free Will, right?” Their father nods, amiable still. Gabriel snarls. “No, Dad. Not good enough. I want a real excuse. Come on! Do you just not care? Or are you _bored_ with us?”

“As a point of fact, I’m eternally fascinated,” He answers.

“By their suffering?” Castiel asks. His voice is small, beside Gabriel’s, but it brings a brief span of silence to the three of them.

When Father answers, his voice is gentle. “No, Castiel. And though you may have believed it from time to time, I did not bring you back solely to extend your suffering.”

“Then why did you?” Castiel demands, voice jumping to anger and regret. “I changed nothing. Michael’s true vessel was claimed, the Horde and the Host both lay waste to Earth – there will be Hell on Earth, or Heaven, and none of the humans _want it._ Not in their hearts. Only _we_ want it, and now we will have it. We will take their world from them, as it has always been written.” His voice shakes, and for the first time in his long memory, he appears to be crying. He blinks, gasps, and more steadily repeats: “I changed _nothing._ ”

Their Father waits. For a time, it seems as though he will say nothing. But he is merely waiting for the words to sink. Then he speaks, low and soothing: “You have purpose, Castiel. This war will end soon. And if you’ll forgive me for ruining the ending, there will be no Hell on Earth. Nor will there be a Heaven.”

“You’re going to lock Lucifer back in his cage,” Gabriel surmises. He is breathless with astonishment, anger, or both.

“Michael will,” Father corrects. “He has received orders directly from me.”

“You’re just going to let this keep going. This stupid family feud. And what about the next time someone gets bored and picks a fight? What then?”

“You want it to end, Gabriel. I understand. But their world does not belong to you. It belongs to them. It has always been their choice.”

“And I s’pose the fact that they would’ve preferred not getting burned in the first place doesn’t matter to you, huh?”

“Consequences of their freedom, your brothers’, and Lucifer’s.”

Gabriel seethes. “Consequences? Cushioning for your palace. The humans’ll worship you in droves, after this, and you just get to suck it up.”

For a moment, there’s a small show of pride in the otherwise modest set of their father’s shoulders. “I don’t demand their faith. Nor do I angle for it. The minor gods might, but I have no need for it.”

“No offense, Dad, but try it a day or two,” Gabriel answers, grace drifting into something resentful, low. “Some humbling could do you good.”

His piece long since spoken, Castiel folds his wings and turns to leave. “Sam Winchester can hold Zachariah no longer.”

“And what are you gonna do about it?” Gabriel snaps at him. For a moment, Castiel thinks he will leave him to it, reengage in his argument. But to his surprise, his brother is taking him by the shoulder and turning to leave with him. “Jack squat, without me. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“Hold,” Father requests again.

And wrathful as Gabriel is, he does. They turn to face their Father again, Gabriel’s fingers lingering on Castiel’s shoulder.

“Do you regret living again, Castiel?” Father asks, abruptly.

He bides, breathes the guilt Zachariah taught him, as Father takes a step forward. “Yes.”

“You shouldn’t.” His Father’s hand rests on his cheek, wet with tears, and he is shamed by it – and then, abruptly, warmed, comforted. The wash of emotion stuns him into stillness. “I will confess to some meddling on allowing you to reach Dean Winchester first. I’ll need you to find him again, when this is done. This time you’ll manage on your own.”

His hand passes to Gabriel’s shoulder. Immediately, the anger soothes to surprise, and then a lingering grief. “Your methods are crude, Gabriel, though occasionally well-intentioned. Recall, however, that it was you that decided upon isolation as your eternal punishment, not I. I believe it fair to say that that particular sentence can be reversed whenever you are so inclined.”

His hand drops, and Gabriel’s expression hardens to a neutral stare.

“What of Zachariah?” Castiel asks.

“He’s made his choices.” A non-answer, but one Castiel can use. His Father smiles, sorrow, but no regret. “You all have, and that’s all I ask of you.”

“Come on,” Gabriel repeats, dragging at his shoulder. His voice is an echo of Sam’s at the lakeshore: disappointment and acceptance both.

And Castiel slowly realizes that that’s all He is. Their Father.

He doesn’t know where that leaves him. Confused, likely. And yes – disappointed.

“Now where is that prick?” Gabriel’s saying, and as usual, he is just as soon layering over true emotion with a mockery. “Ah—I see him. Alright, Cas. Those shiny wings of yours worth something? Let’s see ‘em flap.” Castiel obliges, stirring the garden’s aromas. Gabriel gives a pleased nod, abruptly reminiscent of the vague memories Castiel has of him: youngest of the archangels, first to oblige he and his lesser brothers. “Good,” he says. Then, more true to form, he punches him on the shoulder, hard. “Try to keep up.”

They leave the gardener to his Eden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zachariah catches up.

Rec'd listening: A Perfect Circle - [Judith [Renholder Mix]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQlxg7Zkr-A)

[ ](http://i40.tinypic.com/172r6b.jpg)

 

 

 

 

Sam waits until Castiel’s footsteps fade – and they do, thank God, footsteps on gravel one second and gone the next – before he bends to the weathered tie and sketches out Zachariah’s sigil with the granite rock. It stands out just enough, dull white in the moonlight.

“Hey, Zach!” He shouts, breath fogging the air. He raps the rock twice against the sigil. “Come an’ get it!”

The only answer he gets is a train’s scream, directly behind him. The light being thrown across the tracks is suddenly much, much more than the moon’s.

Sam hooks a vibrating rail and shoves himself into a messy skid down the steep gravel embankment. Good damn timing: wheels spit bright sparks as they scrape where his fingers had been all of three seconds later. The freight train grinds past, its pistons shrieking their siren song as it passes.

He crouches over the gravel, breath coming in gasps. The train keeps on screaming.

With a wary eye on the train cars he pushes up off the ground, brushing off dirt with shaking hands. He’s waiting for something to jump out an empty boxcar’s door, or maybe off a pile of coal – but there’s nothing. The last car passes and the train rolls on, deafening silence in its wake.

Silence, except for footsteps.

There’s a man stalking down the tracks, holy wrath in the set of his shoulders. Sam could recognize that stocky vessel anywhere. And if he turns his head just right, he’s pretty sure he can see the curve of wings at his back, high-set and tightly pressed like a hawk poised for a dive. Gabriel was right: a double-set. Four, not six. Lying bastard.

He digs his fingers into the gravel and makes his way back up. He stakes out the center of the tracks to wait.

“Samuel! Long time no see,” Zachariah calls, long before he’s within range to see his face. He throws his arms out in an open shrug. “Of course it’s you. What else should I expect? So help me, if there weren’t orders against it, I’d see about making you permanently disappear, kiddo.” He’s close enough now for Sam to see the flash of promise in his teeth. When he’s two ties away, he stops. “You have something of mine, boy.”

Sam smiles the smile of a true Winchester. “Wouldn’t you know it, you just missed him.”

“That’s a shame.” He steps close and taps a hand against Sam’s cheek, and for now, Sam lets him. “But I get the feeling that you, being the good little mudmonkey you are, are going to tell me where he is.”

Sam answers with a calm, composed, “Fuck off, Zachariah.” Then he slams Gabriel’s flask into his skull.

Zachariah doesn’t go down – doesn’t even stagger – but his head does snap aside with a satisfying _thunk._ Doesn’t stop him from seizing Sam’s wrist in the downstroke, grinding bone on bone with an iron grip until the flask falls neatly into his other hand. He gives it one passing glance before chucking it into the black shadows beyond the tracks.

“So, where is the little bastard? Heading for the Gates?” Zachariah asks, his tone utterly conversational as one of the tendons in Sam’s wrist gives with a pop. Sam breathes out a hiss. “Or maybe the Fields? This place isn’t infinite, Sam, and I know every inch of it.” He barks a high, pretentious laugh. “I mean, the _gall._ Hiding from _me_ in Heaven? Where were you gonna go, genius?”

“We’ve got return tickets,” Sam answers, voice drawn tight around the pain in his wrist, but still with that edge of smartass that Dean taught him well. _Benched and bored,_ Gabriel said. He forces a smirk: “Unlike you. Michael’s put you out of commission, right? Permanent retirement.” The grip tightens; Sam stalls through gritted teeth until he can add, “Hard to be employee-of-the-month from the stands, isn’t it? Tough break.”

“Oh, it’s tough.” One final crush and Zachariah lets go. Sam jerks back, cradling the broken wrist in his free hand. “Don’t you worry. Michael will forget these stupid promises of his soon enough and I’ll be right back in the game. For now, though, it’s not so bad. I miss all the war and fanfare, and look at all the toys I get to play with!” Though his arms gesture towards the world around them that, by the vengeful stare he’s getting, is directed at him.

He appraises Sam again. “So, the Gates? Maybe the Garden.” He gets a flat stare as an answer. “No? Sammy. You really don’t want to tussle with me, boy. I am _way_ above your paygrade.”

“Squawk all you want, you ugly son of a bitch. I’m not telling you.”

He leans close, promised threat back in his eyes. “Then maybe I’ll just throw you into Hell, see if God cares to save that miserable soul of yours.”

“Who do you think brought me here?” It’s a lie, of course, but only a matter of misplaced implication.

Zachariah pauses, reevaluating him through the dark.

“Told me how to follow you, how to get Cas,” Sam adds.

Zachariah smirks. “’Cas’. That’s cute.” He seizes Sam by the collar, faster than his size would belie; then he shoves, slamming him down onto his back. He doesn’t land on railroad tie and gravel. He lands on broken glass and concrete.

Someone shouts. The sound’s choked.

Sam twists aside, and Cas is there: struggling against the hands on him, and shouting again, kicking and fighting. For a panicked breath he thinks it’s _Cas_ , the Cas he saved, but then he recognizes the wild eyes of that fucked-up Cas of old. He’s in the same clothes from when he threw his phone at Sam’s feet and stalked out the door. This is the same damn warehouse.

One of the angels holding him down is moving, fitting a knife to the notch between two ribs and slowly, stoically driving the blade down. One inch. Two. Cas shouts until blood spills, red and thick, from his mouth. And then he chokes, kicks a long streak of dust and dirt and broken glass off the floor, and chokes more. The angel watches Cas’s face with distanced curiosity as he drives the knife further. Three, four. Clinical interest, is what it is - in Cas drowning.

“Behold,” Zachariah announces casually, a suffocating presence over him, “as God does nothing for _Cas._ ”

When Cas is losing it, getting slower, quieter, his head slips aside. His eyes are dulling, the concrete around one of the angels’ knees a widening pool of blood. His throat works to breathe past the red bubbling from his mouth.

Cas stares at him, unblinking, unseeing, until his eyelids slide down – half-closed – and his body goes lax.

In the silence, Sam shakes.

Zachariah pats him on the cheek. “You’re not so good at the bullshitting, Sammy.”

“You son of a _bitch._ ”

“Still waiting on an answer.”

He slams against him. “ _Fuck off._ ”

“Well, if I’m getting nothing from you, I suppose I’ll just have to make enough ruckus to draw his attention. You can manage that, right Sammy? Yeah, I think so.” He fists his hands and drags Sam upright with a chipper, “Next up!” Then he throws him bodily forward.

The air thickens while he stumbles and drops to his knees. Sulfur. Sam chokes on the now-familiar taste of it and forces his eyes to the ground, sharp-edged and stained red.

Behind him, noises. Growls. (Screams.) But only one that matters: a hoarse, whispered, “God, _please._ ” Somewhere, the clatter of chains, the groan of rusting gears. Whatever moves, it elicits a long, drawn out scream of “ _Sam_ ” that doesn’t end.

Zachariah grabs him by the jaw, jerking his face upwards. He forces his eyes closed. “Come on, Sam,” the angel wheedles. “Your big brother’s down here all for _you_. It’s rude not to look.”

With a wordless shout, Sam shoves off his feet, tackling the angel in the soft of his stomach. Except it’s hardly soft; Sam’s shoulder snaps to just this side of dislocating while the angel barely even shifts, only rocks back a purposeful, strategic step and slams him onto his back, driving the poisoned air from his lungs.

He sees chains. Eternity. Blood. Then he clenches his eyes shut again.

He hears Zachariah back off by three paces and hum a small, tuneless note. He whistles, once – the kind of two-tone warble that’s usually followed with a _Fido, here boy._

In front of him – right in front of him – something growls. Its claws scrape bedrock.

Sam jerks upright and scrambles backward just as the hellhound rushes him. The fucking thing isn’t invisible, not here – it’s rotting bones with an artful decoration of flesh, a jaw with too many teeth snapping right where his foot had been. He brings his heel down on the eye socket while its skull is down, snapping the crest of bone.

It shoves up against him, snarling with vocal chords that by all outward appearances don’t exist. The jagged bone slices through the callous of his foot, cutting clean through to tendon and more. Blood spills over-bright into the space where its eye should be, and it shifts the pitted sockets of its shoulders, shapes up to twist and claw at his leg. Sam jumps back, sprinting up the incline, eyes down _down_ (Dean screams, _SAMMY_ ) but there’s nothing remotely air-like in his lungs anymore, just sulfur. He loses his footing and doesn’t regain it, twists aside (chains, suspended) to see the hellhound with claws outstretched – and then it’s shrieking, because there are fingers hooked between its ribs, fingers which are searing white. It twists back on itself, snapping at the bony wrist of Cas, _Cas,_ who lets go only to catch it by the neck and give a sharp wrench that severs its rotting spine. Still it snarls, and struggles, right up until Castiel hooks both hands between its empty ribs and _tears--_

The hellhound shrieks once more before it’s dissolving in light.

At their back, Zachariah’s making an outraged noise, followed by, “Who the flying _fuck_ are you?”

Castiel takes only a precursory glance upward – one Sam doesn’t follow – before offering a hand, his wings a pleasantly blinding white against the smoke and haze of Hell. Wearily, Sam’s taking it.

The angel drops him someplace bright. Wheat, he thinks, by the smell, but Sam only notices gold ground and blue sky before he’s collapsing back amongst the stalks, swallowing the air in gasps. The air is _air_ and the sun is warm, and he’s never been more convinced that there’s a God.

When he can manage it, he coughs: “You lied.”

“Did I?” Castiel asks. He’s somewhere off to the left.

“You _do_ recharge.”

There’s a pause before Castiel answers. “Yes, I suppose I do.” There’s a lie in there, somewhere, but Sam’s too wrapped up in breathing again to care.

The wheat shifts with someone’s arrival – Gabriel, Sam thinks, smelling something not unlike licorice. “Zachariah?” Castiel asks.

Gabriel answers, sounding delighted with himself. “Crawling his way out of you don’t wanna know where.”

“Did he recognize you?” Sam croaks.

“Nah. Thought I was that little twerp from the 3rd that _Cas_ here used to hang out with.”

“Sandalphon,” Castiel mutters.

“You two were so _cute_ together,” Gabriel teases. “Whatever happened?”

“He got promoted.”

Sam finally cracks an eye to blue, cloudless sky. There’s a shadow over his face; when he bothers to sit up, he realizes it’s Castiel. Castiel and Gabriel both have their faces turned towards the sun, two statues amongst an endless sea of wheat. Here more than anywhere, there’s something ephemeral to them – a shifting sense to their stance, height, shape, everything, emphasized by the just-as-ephemeral wings at their backs. Odd sight.

Sam hazards a guess: “The Fields.”

“Very astute, Sammy boy.” Gabriel offers a hand, dragging him to his feet.

“Do I see what you guys see, or is this just the rationalization of my puny human mind?”

“Bit of both. Don’t sweat it; the real thing’s the same as you see. Just, y’know. Better.” There’s something not quite right about Gabriel, now that Sam’s looking at him more closely. He’s still got the right tone to his voice, but there’s a tension to his face that’s unfamiliar. And Cas, as well – he’s looking better – brighter – but his mouth’s pressed in a thin line, his shoulders set a notch higher than they used to be.

Sam hazards a guess. “Joshua said God’s still out to lunch, I take it.”

Cas gives him one of those meaningful stares and for once, Gabriel deflects poorly. He jostles Cas by the shoulder, throwing him out of his look, and says, “You miss this place, little bro? Yeah, neither did I. Boring as it was six thousand years ago. Whaddya say we get the hell out of here?” He smirks at Sam. “See, it’s funny, ‘cause it’s Heaven—“

Sam passes a look from Cas to Gabriel. “Yeah, brilliant.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes, a ‘ _kids these days_ ’ gesture, and moves on. “As the only one hitherto certified for resurrecting by the powers that don’t be, you’re flying with me, mortal. Bro, you just try to keep up with those stubby wings of yours.”

“I’ll manage.”

For a moment, no one moves; Gabriel’s looking off towards the horizon, and Cas and Sam can only wait. When Gabriel speaks again, eyes back on Cas, there’s not much humor to his voice. “Say goodbye to Home Sweet Home, Castiel.” The way he says _Castiel_ is strange; more precise, harmonic, then Sam’s ever heard it. It’s probably the right way to say it.

He doesn’t get to linger on it; Gabriel’s saying, “C’mere, you.” Before he can dodge, Gabriel drags him closer with an elbow around the neck, rubbing his knuckles over his skull. He talks in the cutesy tones reserved for dogs and infants: “Let’s get you back into that mortal coil. Again.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Archangel's justice, and the gift of a sword.

Rec'd listening: 30 Seconds to Mars - [Search and Destroy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KJCeRDRk9E) & Led Zeppelin - [Good Times Bad Times](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO2qO9FaIWU).

[ ](http://i42.tinypic.com/24qkfv7.jpg)

 

 

 

 

The first breaths Castiel takes on Earth are stale and cold.

The wall in front of him is metal, as are the shelves digging into his back. The knots they’re making are of little consequence – not in comparison to the unpleasant itch of a punctured lung.

He takes his time in mending tissue before he breathes life back into it, dredging dead cells back into their previous activities as he fits his newly-replenished grace more neatly into the empty vessel. At last, he’s able to stretch previously dead muscles, flushed with warming blood once more. The door opens as he flexes his left hand back into operation. Sam, looking decidedly alive, ducks into the room. “You staying here all night?”

He approaches standing with caution: first a cautious kneel, and when that doesn’t fail, he catches a shelf to drag himself to his feet. “You put my body in a freezer.”

“Well, yeah. Didn’t want you to smell.” Sam holds the door open for him to pass. Castiel moves stiffly through, but not without receiving a hard punch to the ribs. For Sam’s sake, Castiel exaggerates a wince while Sam’s shaking his knuckles out with a curse.

Sam waves a finger at him when he’s able to. “That’s one.”

“Now I just owe you a beer,” Castiel recalls.

“And laundry,” Sam reminds him.

Castiel moves past him and stops, examining the room beyond. A diner. Of course. “You put my body in a freezer. In a diner.”

Sam pushes past the double-doors of the kitchen, calling after, “Think of that, the next time you run off and get yourself knifed.”

Gabriel’s still here: he’s sitting in a booth, his back against the window and his legs crossed before him. He tips a beer Castiel’s way when he walks in. “You made it, short stuff.”

To the archangel’s astonishment, Castiel takes the beer from Gabriel’s hand and offers it to Sam. “Here.”

“Consider your debt two-thirds fulfilled,” Sam answers, taking it with a smirk.

Gabriel snatches the beer back without leaving his seat, leaving Sam’s fingers curled around empty air. “Get your own. Completely ungrateful, the lot of you.”

Castiel grants him a skeptical look. “I don’t recall you doing any particular heavy work.”

Gabriel makes a noise of consternation. “I’ll have you know that lugging his ass around is the _definition_ of heavy work.”

The only forewarning Castiel gets is the sharp click of Gabriel’s bottle against the Formica tabletop.

It’s Sam’s head striking the far wall that follows. Twice in rapid succession; Zachariah stands against the near wall with his fingers fisted in Sam’s hair, regarding the bloody pattern left behind with bland disinterest. He lets go. Sam drops hard, landing on his side. His eyes are the dazed half-lidded of the thoroughly concussed.

Three more wingbeats: as always, Zachariah is not alone. Two angels stand at Castiel’s shoulders, a third by the booth that Gabriel is still casually sprawled across.

Wiping his sullied hand on his suit, Zachariah turns with a coldly impatient expression on his face. “Castiel. We weren’t done.”

Castiel holds himself very still. “Step away from him.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He drives a heel back; it lands on Sam’s ribs. Sam curls upon himself, but only partially; his eyes are beginning to slip closed, edging towards unconsciousness. “Prefer the mudmonkey alive. Wouldn’t want a repeat performance, would I?” He sends a disdainful look Gabriel’s way. There’s no recognition there; whatever he sees, it isn’t an archangel. “Can’t say I approve of the hired help.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, I feel the _same_ way,” Gabriel announces.

Zachariah’s hackles rise. “Did I ask you to speak, heathen?”

A snap of Gabriel’s fingers: Zachariah’s underlings disappear with little pomp and less circumstance. Zachariah’s face pales with anger, still ignorant. “Whatever pinprick deity you are, you had better—“

Gabriel cuts him off. “I have always _hated_ the sound of your voice. Gotta say, though, I’m flattered you don’t recognize me.” He’s not lounging on the seat anymore; he’s standing at Zachariah’s shoulder, which draws a look of blanched astonishment from the angel’s face when he says, “Testament to my mastery of disguise.”

Zachariah turns about in time to catch a brief display of Gabriel’s wings: not Raphael’s lightning, or Castiel’s own mere shadows. His is a reference wreathed in fire.

His expression dulls from astonishment to a flat dread. “Gabriel.”

“Oh, don’t look like that. I’m not gonna kill you, Zachariah!” Gabriel announces cheerfully. His voice drops down to a patronizing drawl: “You’re below my pay grade.”

Before Zachariah can unfold his wings the room’s doors slam shut in rapid succession, the blinds of each window following suit. The air constricts as sigils etched in red appear on each exit, painted by an unseen hand. Gabriel has his own palm held up, a bloody line scripted across it. When the last sigil is complete, the cut heals; Gabriel calmly folds his fingers down and drops the hand to his side.

There’s a sword in his other hand. Thoroughly trapped, Zachariah stares at it. It’s an archangel’s sword – the hum of it audible.

Slowly and carefully, Gabriel repeats: “I’m not going to kill you.” And then, abruptly, he’s tossing the blade to Castiel. He catches it on reflex, and stares at Gabriel with just as much shock as Zachariah when he casually announces, “Castiel is.”

Zachariah’s expression unfolds into a wry smile. “Still with your jokes.”

“No joke.”

“I’m his superior. It’s hardly fair that I—“

Gabriel cuts him off again, this time with a hand. To the silence, he announces, “Enough bullshit. Fight’s on.”

Castiel flips the sword to fit more snugly into his palm. He notes with a righteous anger the fear on Zachariah’s face and the uncertainty in his stance.

The same anger stays his hand until Zachariah has retrieved his sword. Only when his fingers are adjusting uncertainly to the grip does Castiel move. On the down-stroke, he strikes hilt against forehead. On the up-stroke, he aims for his heart. Zachariah’s sword is clattering to the floor, leaving both hands free. One smacks against his wrist, forcing the killing blow down and aside; the other draws up in a motion of panic that brings Zachariah’s elbow into contact with Castiel’s face, throwing him back a half step. They’re both quick to recover; Zachariah to lunge for his weapon and draw it wide, Castiel to catch the backswipe with his own blade.

A step back, and the swords meet again. And again. And again.

Zachariah fights like a bureaucrat, not a soldier. He’s clumsy and forgetful with the sword, protected only by the force of his Grace. He bludgeons his way forward, and Castiel dodges. He dodges until he is cornered, and must force his way through with the edge of his borrowed sword.

He’ll parry, evade until Zachariah has wasted all his energy, and then he’ll have him on his knees. He’ll place Gabriel’s blade to his throat and Zachariah will beg for mercy and Castiel, Castiel will be obliged to give it.

Or maybe Zachariah will never have the chance to ask for mercy.

Maybe Castiel will not allow him the opportunity.

They work until they are both bloodied by glancing blows by hilt and hand. Until Castiel very nearly pins Zachariah to the wall, and earns a huffed, “You honestly think you can kill me.” Zachariah’s eyes are wild under the line of blood escaping the wound on his temple.

Castiel doesn’t bother with a response.

Zachariah sweeps left as Castiel drags his blade from the wall.

Gabriel steps aside, hand dragging Sam along with him. Sam who is coherent again, watching with a sharp tension.

Downward stroke met with a deflection; with purpose Castiel overcorrects and Zachariah catches his wing, bears down with crushing fingers, and in his distraction, the pommel of Zachariah’s sword deals one swift blow to his head—

The world drops towards incoherency. Flashes: instinctual movements. He sways back, and the air before him is cut apart by a killing blow inches short. He catches his feet – falls – catches them again. He lashes out and up, muscles singing. Zachariah catches it, jarring force of bone on bone, and his eyes—eyes, wild.

“ _You,_ ” Zachariah laughs. A hyena, loud and loathing. “ _You,_ exiled from Heaven.”

An overstep; he’s on the floor, the ceiling above, and Zachariah is above, looming, blocking out all.

“You—you rebelled for _nothing,_ you insignificant prick.” His sword he holds above, a bloody promise. His eyes are already singing victory. “You have _nothing._ ”

He draws back for the killing blow, and Castiel is still just long enough.

Gabriel’s sword catches Zachariah – canines bared – in the meat of his throat.

Slowly, the feral grin slips loose, drops into gray shock. Blood loops around the plain metal of the sword, flows across his wrist – and Zachariah is a wash of white, his last act a searing noise and heat followed by the acrid stench of burnt ozone.

His vessel’s empty eyes stare at Castiel with glazed astonishment.

He rolls aside, dumping the body off. His damned bloody nose; it’s getting in his mouth, bringing him to cough. The cough turns into a small laugh. A bloody nose. Of course.

Castiel opens his eyes and stares at the hand that Gabriel’s offering him with bland resentment.

“What? Should I have asked permission, first?” Gabriel says. He tsks. “Like you would’ve said no. You did good, kid. Now give me my sword back.”

“You’re terrifying, Cas. Just so you know,” Sam announces. He’s sitting with his back against the wall, healed by Gabriel’s hand. Castiel passes him an uncertain smile as Gabriel takes the offered sword, his fingers a far more natural grip to its hilt.

Gabriel looks over the ruined room, Zachariah and his wings of ash. “This ain’t gonna do.” He sheaths the sword, freeing his hands for a quick clap: the blood is scrubbed from the walls, ash from the floor. Zachariah’s body is gone, clean tiles in its place. Then he shoves the heel of his palm against Castiel’s forehead with a sharp, “Be healed!” A dozen wounds healed at once; he presses a hand to what had been split cartilage at the bridge of his nose and finds the blood there gone.

Sam’s looking at him, wry. “Always with the—“

Castiel cuts him off with a stern, “Sam.”

“Oh, before I forget.” Gabriel’s handing a sword – _his_ sword, the lighter heft of a minor officer’s – to him, hilt first. Castiel takes it, his expression of surprise words enough. Gabriel gives a lazy shrug. “Yeah, could’ve given you yours, but I figured you needed a bit of an advantage.”

He balances the more familiar weapon. Less power, but a more comforting weight. He frowns at Gabriel, uncertain of how to respond to that mix of generosity and insult. “Thank you. I suppose.”

Gabriel is already settled back again, his legs crossed on the table and beer – still half-full – in hand. “I’m charmed, but sit down and shut up, would you? Jesus. You two are too much work.”

“How long are you sticking around?” Sam asks, dropping into the opposite bench. Castiel drags a chair to the end of the table. His knees are bumping a cooler that wasn’t there three seconds ago. He retrieves two beers – fantasy or not, he doesn’t particularly care – and places them on the countertop.

“Long as I feel like it,” Gabriel declares.

Castiel considers the label of his bottle. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lewd woman on it. “The war will end soon.”

“No Hell on Earth, no Heaven either.” Gabriel scowls. “Lucky us.”

Sam’s eyeing them both with curiosity, but for once he keeps his questions contained. So Castiel continues: “When it’s done, we’ll have to find Dean. We’ll manage.”

Now, he stares at Castiel: a silent scrutiny, a demand for truth. Whatever he finds, it drives his eyes down to the tabletop.

Gabriel waits. Castiel waits.

Sam stares into the Formica and through. At last, he clears his throat and says with an impossible evenness, “Yeah, we usually do.”

When he looks up, he’s calm, ‘okay’.

Castiel supposes he feels the same way.

“In the meantime,” Gabriel interrupts. He’s back to his 10-year-old exuberance, tearing them out of their fugue. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there is a _dragon_ over in New Kent County.”

Sam laughs at the absurdity. “Wait. _What?_ ”

“Fangs, wings, fire. Everything. Full-on Apocalyptic dragon, just waiting to be slain. It is an experience that is not to be missed.”

Sam and Castiel exchange only the briefest of considering looks. “I’m in,” Castiel announces.

“Castiel, dragonslayer,” Sam intones, tipping his beer his way.

“And Sasquatch, dragon-toothpick,” Gabriel grins, joining the toast.

Sam pulls an insulted face. “Watch it, Gabriel.”

“It’s a proven fact that humans are tastier to them. Look it up, geek-boy. It’s right under Draconian Delicacies: _Sasquatch Flambé._ ”

“Yeah, well-- you don’t get to ride in the car.”

“Oh, I’m riding in the car. And I’m picking the music.”

“What, Asia? No. No friggin’ way.”

“I got some Raffi, if you’d prefer.”

“Cas—“

“I’m not involved.”

“Hey, Sammy-boy, you can be the _bait.”_

“Cas—“

 

 

 

 

FINIS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
